Iran is still finding ways to bypass sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday. Adam Szubin, director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which supervises American enforcement of the sanctions, said the Iranians were using private exchange houses and trading companies in other countries, masking transactions with fake identities and relying on the paperless practice known as hawala, in which money is transferred informally and often illegally through couriers.
On Wednesday, Iran’s Central Bank said the annual inflation rate reached 27% at the end of 2012, but private economists say that figure vastly understates the real inflation rate. Steve H. Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economics professor, calculated that Iran’s inflation rate last year was 110%.
{Andy Heller-Matzav.com Newscenter}
