Founded c. 2005 | Named after Fatemi Street | |
Membership 54 suspects11 jailed (as of January 2011) Leader(s) Mohammad-Reza Rahimi (alleged) | ||
Fatemi Circle (Persian: حلقه فاطمی) is a nickname given to a Financial corruption gang in Iran, consisting of statesmen nurtured during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government.
The gang became publicly known in April 2010, when Elyas Naderan, a Majlis member stated “Mr. Rahimi is the head of the corruption circle in Fatemi Street who made decisions about collecting resources from corrupt sources and about their distribution and now almost all members of this economically corrupt network in Fatemi Street have been arrested except the current First Vice President of Iran.” The claim was backed by Ahmad Tavakkoli and Ali Motahari.
According to Chief Justice of Iran, "The members of this gang were able to deprive citizens and the treasury of billions of tomans through forging administrative and judicial documents. One of them alone embezzled 6 billion Tomans ($6 million)."
Iran Insurance case
Fatemi circle is said to be responsible for the embezzlement scandal in "Iran Insurance", state-owned Insurance Company. In 2013, names of 12 people convicted in the case was announced: Mostafa Hamzeh-Nosi, Davoud Fahimi-Roudposhti, Badiollah Kiani, Jaber Abdali, Mohammad-Taghi Tavakkoli, Ali Jalil, Shahriar Khosravi, Mahmoud Bagheri, Iraj Abdolhamidi, Fariborz Farid-Danesh, Davoud Sarkhosh-Shahri and Yousef-Ali Darounparvar.