According to ISNA, Tehran Judiciary Chief Nasir Atebati announced at a meeting with special courts handling economic crimes that 10.5 billion euros in foreign currency have been returned to the country as a result of prosecutions in currency cases. The announcement came during a session discussing the rapid rise in the number of economic crime files.
According to Donya-e Eqtesad's report from ISNA, Atebati noted that some organized economic networks use low-income individuals to create commercial card registrations and currency commitments, saying investigations should focus on identifying the true beneficiaries of these networks. According to Atebati, beyond the foreign currency recoveries, 3,060 billion rials in barter transactions were conducted, some properties were seized, and mobile phone lines were confiscated. The announcement said 68 people, including 39 executives from large industrial and trading companies, were arrested in the course of investigations; 30 major companies, including some in the petrochemical sector, met their foreign currency obligations in full. Atebati also noted that approximately 16 key suspects fled abroad, and legal proceedings to secure their extradition are ongoing.
Atebati further stated that the number of cases rose from 1,200 in the Iranian year 1404 (2025-2026) to 4,200 to date in year 1405, representing a 250 percent increase. Facing this surge, he emphasized the need for additional expert staffing, greater use of appeals court advisor capacity, and improved working conditions. Atebati said that the success metric for judicial decisions is not legal justification alone, but also the amount of claims collected, the foreign currency returned to the country, and deterrent effect. He concluded by noting the need to strengthen joint-liability guarantor mechanisms to collect currency commitments even when the primary suspect has fled, and said coordination continues with the Supreme Court to establish consistent jurisprudence on this issue.
Context
Iran has struggled for years with currency smuggling and the non-return of export revenues due to U.S. sanctions and capital controls; regulations requiring exporters to return foreign currency earnings within specified periods are updated frequently for this reason. According to a Treasury Department report from October on which Farsçadan reported, pressure on the rial—marked by recent depreciation and rising inflation—pushes importers and exporters toward informal channels; this forms the backdrop for the broad prosecutions announced by the judiciary today. The "commercial card rental" method Atebati mentioned involves using the identity documents of low-income citizens to issue import licenses that organized networks then use; it is a widely known currency-smuggling model in Iran. On the same day, the Central Bank issued a circular extending the deadline for exporters to use the advantage of sourcing import currency from their own export revenues to the final month of the 1405 Iranian year (Esfand); this shows the government simultaneously employing punitive and incentive tools to encourage currency inflows. The figures announced have not been verified by an independent auditing body and rest solely on the judiciary's own statements.
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