WASHINGTON: The US government imposed economic sanctions Friday on a Iranian financier accused of embezzling billions of dollars in public funding to enrich “regime elites” in Tehran.
Iranian national Ali Ansari is described in a US Treasury statement as a “key financier” for the Islamic republic’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
According to the Treasury, “Ansari has effectively institutionalized large?scale embezzlement within the Iranian regime, diverting publicly funded wealth into an extensive overseas portfolio of real estate and commercial holdings.”
The scheme served “to enrich himself, regime elites,” including those in the supreme leader’s office and Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards.
Ansari embezzled the Iranian people’s money and invested it into real estate and commercial properties in Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Britain, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates and other nations, according to the Treasury, the department which administers US economic sanctions.
