Jared Malsin

And that was a warning sign that the entire financial system was in crisis.

That cut off Iran from the world financial system and made it this kind of closed system almost, where it was very, very isolated, and it put its financial system under a lot of strain.

— For example, it is cut off from the SWIFT payment system.

The central bank is under sanctions.

Several other Iranian banks are under sanctions.

So this is a country that cannot borrow internationally.

It cannot do trade normally.

It cannot sell its oil freely.

And it is deeply, deeply isolated.

And that created a situation where you have the central bank propping up this entire system.

Something like 70% of Iran's banks were government-controlled to some degree.

That's according to an analysis by a former IMF official that I spoke to by 2019, which is when things started to come apart at the seams.

Right, so Ayande Bank is a microcosm of these compound economic problems.

It is a bank that was formed in 2013 by a guy named Ali Ansari, who is from what's believed to be one of Iran's richest families.

He's close to the conservative establishment.

And he founded this bank that offered the highest interest rates on the market.

And it was also heavily dependent on the central bank.

Well, what the bank was doing is that it was basically acting as a kind of piggy bank for these lavish real estate projects, especially malls.

That's right.

In particular, this one mall