Businessman Indicted in Money Laundering

ENCINO —  A co-owner of an Encino money transmitting business and several other men across the globe have been indicted in a money laundering scheme that involved an international drug cartel in Europe and the United States, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

More than $6 million in assets have been frozen as a result of the investigation, conducted by federal agencies and police in Germany, Spain and Turkey, Assistant U.S. Atty. Fernando Aenelle-Rocha said.

Jafar Pour-Jalil Rayhani, 58, of Istanbul, Turkey, and Sirouss Sadighi, 57, of Encino were accused of laundering narcotics proceeds, while several other men were charged with laundering money they believed to be profits from narcotics transactions, but which was actually U.S. currency supplied by undercover federal agents, Aenelle-Rocha said.

Aenelle-Rocha said that in 1992, Spanish police arrested several drug couriers in Spain, causing Sadighi to flee from that country, first to Germany, then the United States. He remained in contact with Rayhani, who was demanding that Sadighi recoup about $700,000 in money seized by Spanish police.

Aenelle-Rocha said federal agents tracked Sadighi while he was in the United States, and were led to MGM Marwex International in Encino, a subsidiary of MGM Marwex Geldwechsel, a financial services company based in Frankfurt, Germany.

Federal agents from the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Agency and U.S. Customs Service approached the business, posing as heroin and opium traffickers, asking co-owner Mahmoud Kazerouni, 42, of West Hills and associates to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars of supposed drug profits, Aenelle-Rocha said.

The other men involved in the ring, Aenelle-Rocha said, were Iraj Ghaffari, 56, of Encino, Ali Zarrabi, 68, of West Los Angeles and Bagher Amoui-Pour, 44, head of MGM Marwex Geldwechsel in Frankfurt.

Aenelle-Rocha said the men relayed the money--eventually about $720,000--through a number of businesses and bank accounts in Los Angeles and Europe without the required documentation.

The two-year investigation ended in late summer, and within recent weeks Turkish police arrested Rayhani, German police arrested Amoui-Pour and U.S. federal agents arrested Kazerouni, Ghaffari and Sadighi, Aenelle-Rocha said. The three face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $500,000 or twice the amount of money laundered if convicted, he said. They are to be arraigned Nov. 13 in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.