The former head of Iran's largest state-owned bank, who fled to Canada over a record-breaking USD 2.6 billion embezzlement scandal, has been given a 20-year prison sentence and USD 6 million fine in absentia, the judiciary said today.
Mahmoud Reza Khavari, the former head of Bank Melli, took refuge in Canada, where he has citizenship, after the scandal broke in 2011.
Moosa Ghazanfarabadi, head of Tehran's Revolutionary Court, told the conservative Fars news agency that Khavari had been sentenced to 20 years for "disrupting the economic system" and 10 years for bribery, to run concurrently.
Each charge carried a USD 3 million fine, and the verdict was still open to appeal.
Khavari obtained Canadian citizenship in 2005, and Canada does not have an extradition agreement with Iran.
The scam, described as the largest in Iran's history, was uncovered by prosecutors during the tenure of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Prosecutors found a private group named Amir Mansour Aria Development Co. had bought 40 companies, including a major steel mill, with forged letters of credit obtained from major banks whose managers had been bribed.
They amassed an estimated 30 billion rials (USD 2.6 billion).
The group was run by businessman Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, who was hanged in 2014 on charges of "corruption on earth... through bribery and money laundering".
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