
AB Kuai.Dong|5月 07, 2026 06:00
From death row inmates to national heroes.
Babak Zanjani spent many years on death row until last year when Iranian authorities suddenly decided to release him.
The reason is that Iran is currently facing economic sanctions from the United States, with many bank accounts and related companies frozen. So the authorities thought of this businessman who once helped Iran sell oil and exchange it for money, and took the foreign exchange that could not be obtained after being sanctioned by the United States back to Iran.
Although he was previously sentenced to death by Iran on suspicion of corruption and government fraud.
But last year, Iran suddenly changed his death sentence to direct release because the country needed him.
The US Treasury Department accuses this old man of earning foreign exchange for Iran through two cryptocurrency exchanges starting in 2022. In just two years, approximately $1 billion of cryptocurrency flowed through the relevant exchanges and eventually reached organizations related to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
So this old man, overnight, went from being a profit merchant sentenced to death to becoming Iran's designated cryptocurrency economic agent.