For more than a month, Rasoul Shasvari has been making repeated visits to a branch of Bank Melli in his hometown of Javanrud in western Iran, searching for money that disappeared from his account. Each time, he says, he receives the same answer: the account was hacked and the money is gone.
Shasvari, an Iranian farmer, had deposited 180 million tomans — about $1,000 — into the account weeks before the funds vanished. He told Alhurra that the money represented his only income this year from exporting winter and spring agricultural products to Iraq.
He did not learn what had happened until May 3, when a routine attempt to purchase household necessities failed. After contacting the bank, he was initially told there was a technical issue with the accounts. When he later visited the branch, officials informed him that the account had been emptied and that he was not alone. According to bank employees, many customers have been affected in a country where electronic payment cards are used for most daily transactions.
About two weeks earlier, on April 20, Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted Masoud Bashamji, deputy head of payment systems and new technologies at the Central Bank of Iran, as saying that Bank Sepah and Bank Melli had been subjected to “cyber and physical attacks by hostile actors.” He said officials had resolved the problem “as quickly as possible.”
For Shasvari and others affected, however, the explanation offered little reassurance. The disappearance of relatively small sums from the accounts of workers and farmers in a country battered by war, sanctions and inflation has fueled broader concerns that a security crisis could be used either to financially punish ordinary Iranians or to conceal the confiscation of their funds under the guise of cyberattacks and collaboration with hostile powers.
Kamyar Rahmani, a bakery worker in the western city of Marivan, said his account at Bank Melli was also emptied. According to Rahmani, the account contained about 16 million tomans — roughly $75 — representing what remained of his monthly salary at the end of April.
“The money suddenly disappeared,” Rahmani told Alhurra. “I went to the bank several times, but they said the matter was beyond their control and that the accounts had been hacked by Israeli cyber operatives.”
Rahmani said bank officials told him and other customers that their accounts could be targeted again because the country was “at war.” But he and several other Iranians interviewed by Alhurra expressed skepticism toward that explanation. They suspect the losses may be linked to corruption networks or to undisclosed actions by security agencies targeting individuals who did not participate in campaigns supporting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the war.
No independent evidence was available to substantiate those allegations. The suspicions nonetheless reflect the deep distrust many Iranians harbor toward official institutions, particularly as authorities expand security and judicial measures targeting the assets and property of individuals accused of collaborating with Israel, the United States, or organizations and media outlets deemed hostile.
According to activists and opposition figures who spoke to Alhurra, Iranian authorities have increasingly classified citizens according to political and security loyalties since the recent conflict. Those considered close to the government include members of the Revolutionary Guard, the Basij militia, and individuals who participated in campaigns donating gold or money to state security institutions. At the same time, critics say authorities have broadened the category of those labeled “enemies of the Islamic Revolution” to include protesters, activists, journalists, opposition figures and even environmental advocates, often without publicly disclosed accusations.
Hirsh Balani, a member of the foreign relations committee of the opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, said authorities have confiscated funds and property from Iranians in recent weeks on allegations of cooperation with Israel or the United States, or of receiving financial transfers from them. He said the measures have affected university professors, athletes, journalists, reformists, members of ethnic minorities and prisoners.
Balani argued that the primary objective is to intimidate Iranians, particularly activists. But he also linked the campaign to the government’s financial difficulties.
“The confiscations reveal the authorities’ need for money,” Balani told Alhurra. “But they will not be sufficient to rebuild the weapons factories, missile facilities and drone infrastructure destroyed during the war.”
On April 28, Javan Online, a news outlet close to hardline factions within the Revolutionary Guard, reported on a meeting dedicated to discussing the confiscation of assets belonging to what it described as “elements affiliated with the aggressor enemy.” The report quoted Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei as saying:
“We must make clear to anyone who cooperates with the aggressor enemy in any way, whether inside or outside the country, that we will pursue them under the law. If the law provides for confiscation of their property, we will certainly confiscate it in accordance with the law.”
Farzin Karbasi, an Iranian Kurdish opposition political analyst based in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, said his family has endured more than four decades of confiscation policies in Iran. Financial and real-estate assets belonging to his family, he said, were seized on multiple occasions because of their opposition to the government and because some relatives lived abroad.
Karbasi said Iran’s Revolutionary Courts have intensified what he described as summary proceedings against citizens on charges including protesting, opposition activity, espionage for Israel and the United States, waging war against God and rebellion — accusations he characterized as political in nature.
“These trials end every day with the confiscation of the assets of those accused,” he said.
According to Karbasi, the goal extends beyond punishing defendants. He believes the authorities are sending a broader warning to the public: opposition to the government could result not only in imprisonment, but also in the loss of homes, savings and property.
That assessment echoes concerns raised by Amnesty International in a report published on May 28, which described the measures as part of a wider crackdown on dissent. The organization said Iranian judicial authorities had issued orders to identify, freeze and confiscate assets, including bank accounts, real estate and financial holdings, belonging to individuals accused of cooperating with “hostile states” or “hostile media outlets.”
Amnesty said Iran’s judiciary announced in March the use of a digital system known as “Saham,” designed to rapidly identify and seize assets belonging to people authorities describe as “terrorists and mercenary agents of the Zionist enemy and other hostile countries.”
Since then, according to Amnesty, authorities have confiscated assets belonging to more than 750 people labeled “traitors” or “enemy agents,” both inside and outside Iran, including journalists living in exile.
After weeks of inquiries, neither Shasvari nor Rahmani has received a clear explanation. At the bank, they continue to hear references to hacking, war and hostile actors.
Shasvari has lost the proceeds of an entire agricultural season. Rahmani has lost what remained of his monthly wages from the bakery where he works.
Neither knows when the money will be returned — or whether it will be returned at all.
Adapted and translated from the original Arabic.
