Iran arrests 9 more in $2.6bn bank fraud case

TEHRAN: Iran’s state prosecutor says authorities have arrested nine more suspects in a bank fraud case described as the biggest financial scam in the country’s history.

State television broadcast late Monday an interview with Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehei in which he said that a total of 67 people have been questioned in the $2.6 billion case, details of which first broke in September.


Ejehei said some government officials were among those summoned, and that the judiciary had come under pressure as a result. He did not elaborate.

The accusations focus on the defendants’ alleged used of forged documents to obtain credit at one of Iran’s top financial institutions. Conservative opponents of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have used the case to attack his allies.