Iran executes billionaire in bank fraud

Iran executed on Saturday a billionaire businessman involved in the biggest embezzlement case in the country's banking history, Press TV reported. Mahafarid Amir-Khosravi, the owner of Amir Mansour Aria Company, who reportedly swindled 2.6 billion U.S. dollars out of some banks, was convicted of disrupting the country's economy through embezzlement, money laundering and bribery, the report said. He has been hanged at Tehran's Evin detention center in the capital Tehran after the Iran's Supreme Court upheld his death sentence, according to the report. Three others, including Behdad Behzadi, legal advisor of Amir- Khosravi, Iraj Shoja, his financial solicitor, and Saeed Kiani Rezazadeh, the head of the Ahvaz branch of Saderat Bank, have also been sentenced to death over the fraud. In the summer of 2011, Iranian media reported that nearly 2.6 billion dollars was swindled out of several banks over a span of more than two years by Amir Mansour Aria Company, whose owner, taking advantage of the government connections, purchased swaths of state-owned assets, including those of Iran's second largest steel maker Khuzestan Steel Company. In October 2011, Iranian media said a number of Iranian banking officials were also arrested over the scandal, allegedly one of the biggest frauds in Iran's history.