Former CBI officials sentenced for disrupting exchange market

Beginning in the middle of the Iranian year of 1396(March 21, 2017-2018), when the foreign currency market fluctuations got momentum, Ahmad Araghchi, the then newly appointed Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, in coordination with the Governor of the Central Bank Valliollah Seif, decided to manage the rising prices in the foreign currency market through injecting foreign currencies in the form of cash into the market instead of taking specialized and scientific measures in a bid to curb the volatile market.

During the implementation of the decision to inject cash into the market, a lot of wrongdoings and illegal actions took place by the CBI officials which triggered filing a legal case against them by the Judiciary.

Zabihollah Khodaeian, the spokesman for the Iranian Judiciary on Saturday announced the verdicts and sentenced the former CBI chief to 10 years on charges of disrupting the foreign currency market and laying the ground for illegally selling and buying foreign currencies, his deputy Araghchi to 8 years on the same charges and a distributor of the foreign currency cash into the volatile market by the name of Salar Aghakhani to 13 years in prison.

Two other officials in the Presidential office by the name of Meisam Khodaei and the CBI official Seyed Rasul Sajjad, who had links to Aghakhani were also sentenced to 13 years in prison.

KI/FNA14000724000444