To This Tycoon, Iran Sanctions Were Like Gold - NYTimes.com

To This Tycoon, Iran Sanctions Were Like Gold - NYTimes.com:

"

Reza Moattarian

Babak Zanjani began his 

career selling sheepskins 

and became a critical actor 

in Iran’s effort to evade 

sanctions on oil sales.

He called himself the “economic basij,” a reference to Iran’s hard-line paramilitary organization and defender of the Islamic Revolution. He drove a black Mercedes 500 SL and wore a $30,000 watch, as befits a man who put his self-worth at $13.5 billion.

Not bad for a 39-year-old who began his career in the 1980s selling sheepskins and emerged more recently as a critical actor in Iran’s effort to evade United States sanctions on its oil sales.

But it has all come tumbling down for the tycoon, Babak Zanjani, whose accounts were frozen by the United States Treasury in April and who has been blacklisted by the European Union."

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