Iran Hangs 4 Bankers For Fraud

As an example of justice for the people, Iran sentenced four banksters Monday to hang for their role in the Persian state’s largest-ever fraud scandal.

In addition to the four capital cases, thirty-five other defendants face punishments ranging from life imprisonment to “flogging and fines,” according to BBC News.

The scandal stems from charges issued in Sept. 2011 that some of the defendants forged documents on the behalf of an investment company to secure loans for the purchase of state-owned properties during a four-year period under the government’s privatization scheme. In all, three trillion Iranian rials, or equivalent to approximately $2.6 billion were fraudulently obtained by the banker cabal.

The high-profile case fueled infighting between Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the nation’s ruling clerics.

Moreover, the fallout of the scandal included an impeachment vote of Iranian Economy Minister Shamseddin Hosseini, an Ahmadinejad appointment. Hosseini narrowly escaped conviction in Nov. 2011 for his alleged dereliction of duty to pursue the fraud.

In contrast, financial fraud in the United States and Europe involving trillions of dollars has not been prosecuted, though calls for prosecutions to save the fading reputation, credibility and legitimacy of the Western banking system falls on deaf ears in Washington, London and Brussels.

Economists suggest that taking a blind eye to massive and pervasive financial fraud leads to capital flight and distrust of American and European institutions, not to mention the demoralizing effects upon the citizenry. It’s an age-old and rudimentary issue, according to economist and Iranian Jew Nouriel Roubini.

“Bankers are greedy; they’ve been greedy for the last hundreds of years,” Roubini told Bloomberg News earlier in the month. “It’s not a question if they are more immoral today then they were a thousand years ago, you have to make sure they behave in ways in which you minimize those risks.”