An Iranian official tasked with fighting corruption has said that in the final three years of the administration of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, $22 billion in exchange-rate abuses took place, with companies using access to government-subsidized exchange rates to to buy luxury items or resell goods at a free market rate and pocket the difference.
“Huge amounts of currency at a prime exchange rate was given to importers who, after investigation, it became clear that some of them are not real, meaning they had no foreign existence,” Kazem Palizdar, head of the office for coordinating the fight against economic corruption, to;d Industry and Development Monthly.