Iran this Sunday executed Mohamad Reza Ghaffari, the leader of a major investment fraud in which tens of thousands of people were deceived through a car-buying network, the judiciary said.
The owner of the company Rezaayat Khodro Taravat Novin was hanged after the Supreme Court confirmed his death sentence for “large-scale disruption of the country’s economic system” and online fraud, according to the judicial portal Mizan Online.
The pyramid scheme, launched in 2014 in Qazvin province northwest of Tehran, promised vehicles at below-market prices and later expanded to real estate and investment schemes.
Prosecutors accused Ghaffari and his associates of taking “large sums of money” and using the new deposits to pay initial customers.
The plan included amounts equivalent to $350 million at current exchange rates. Only “around 4%” of customers received their vehicle, according to the portal. The case registered more than 28,000 complaints and involved 28 defendants.
Iran imposes the death penalty in murder and rape cases as well as in serious economic and espionage cases.
Human rights groups such as Amnesty International denounce that Iran is the country after China that uses the death penalty most frequently.
rr afp/dpa
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