Two men hanged in Iran for hoarding gold coins

Currency crisis leads Tehran to crack down on black market

TEHRAN, Iran — Signaling zero tolerance for economic crimes, Iran hanged two financial traders convicted of stockpiling gold coins and profiteering during a currency crisis, state media reported Wednesday.

Vahid Mazloumin, dubbed the “sultan of coins,” and Mohammad Esmaeel Qasemi, an accomplice, were hanged in the predawn hours two months after their trial before a newly established court focused on financial cases, a semiofficial news agency said.

They and a third person were swiftly convicted of “spreading corruption on earth,” punishable by death in Iran’s Islamic legal system. Death sentences for Mazloumin and Qasemi were upheld by Supreme Court in October; the third convict’s appeal is pending.

They were among scores of petty financial traders and others arrested in a sweeping crackdown on Tehran’s vast black market in gold coins and hard currency. Mazloumin, 58, was detained in July for hoarding two tons of gold coins, state media said.

The traders did a brisk business for the first half of the year as Iran’s chronic fiscal mismanagement — coupled with the renewal of U.S. economic sanctions — drove the currency, the rial, to its lowest levels ever against the dollar.

Many Iranians traded their cash and other belongings for dollars and gold. The panic came on top of years of calamities at private banks and credit unions, collapsing due to bad loans and robbing retirees of their savings.

Amid rising public anger at the scarcity of diapers, medicines and other basic goods, the Iranian government blamed small-time traders for manipulating the currency markets and launched police raids on warehouses believed to be stockpiling consumer items.

In August, with the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, special courts were set up to quickly dispose of cases involving economic crimes. At least seven people have reportedly been sentenced to death