Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, aka Amir Mansour Aria, has been put to death after Iran’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence for bank fraud. The defendant was convicted for his role in a $2.6 billion scam in Iran, allegedly the biggest bank fraud case in Iran since 1979.
According to media reports, Khosravi and his conspirators used forged documents to obtain loans from Bank Saderat in Iran.
39 defendants were convicted along with Khosravi, four of which resulted in the death penalty, two were sentenced to life in prison, and the remaining received 25 years in prison.
Death is a judgment not within the right or reach of men, but God alone.
However, it is quite striking the response by the Iranian judicial system when comparing it to the U.S. judicial system in punishing the many who benefited from the financial meltdown of 2007-2008. Very few were actually punished, most having to only sit before congressmen and make excuses and act ignorant for a few days. Momentary public scrutiny was all most U.S. financial thieves suffered… and it was back to work for them.
The problem is the culture in Iran is barbaric. To execute someone who is a fraud and cheateld banks of money is a little over”kill”. Anyway I have been to Iran and all over the Middle East and India where it is normal to provide some graft or bribe (bakshish) for every transaction. There are so many middle-men to keep busy and employed, so it has permeated their culture.
Anyone with the name Amir (Prince) probably thinks he should live like a Shah (king) and we see that in our culture also. Take the example of how the good old American principle that “A Man’s Home is His Castle” has morphed into everyone needs a big oversized house with luxury amenities to show everyone how well-off they are. They are just in a contest with who can die with the most toys and enjoy the envy others show in the presence of their material acquisitions.
So, as an appraiser for many years, the Iranian clients in my experience were the most clever manipulators and seemed to expect me to get that value high in order to get a higher loan amount. Well, they were far more experienced in shoveling bs to the appraiser because it is well understood that this is normal business operating procedure. Because I knew this cultural background I see the world as the dog-eat-dog world it is when it comes to finance. The only difference in the ways culture supports cheating is they keep re-inventing the wheel and sell all the snake oil they can to obstruct the false practices that are used in the lending business.
You can call a loan officer a loan consultant, but he is still a salesman. It is real hard to get sales people to be ethical in business, in fact, there are many rewards for cheating to gain a bigger commission. Realtors do it every day. Bankers are no better than those running casinos where we all know in advance that the “house” has the advantage and may be manipulating the games. What is new? Nothing, since the Dark Ages mostly men have been cheaters in the lending game.
What is surprising about a fraudster getting executed in Iran?? Nothing.
I think this will be a deterrant to fraud in the future in Iran. This eye for an eye type justice is carried out every day where women can be killed for adultery, or stoned to death publically in front of their families. So Iranians get stoning or death for their small and large crimes.
In America we reward those who cheat the most (Wall St) and punish the peasants like we live in the Dark Ages. I would like to see some of those fraudsters be publically humiliated by those who lost everything they saved or invested in trashed by real crooks. These guys are on talk shows and companies like Goldman Sachs prospers even after they lie and cheat, continuously. Why don’t they go to jail? Well, they have politicians and high paid lobbyists and lawyers working overtime to make them look good. I can smell them a mile away….