Convicted Iranian fraudster became US citizen after fleeing $25m pyramid scheme

From Mahdavifar to Mahan: How Reporters Found a Convicted Iranian Fraudster in Texas

Reporters first identified Mazyar Mahan and his wife on a list of people who had acquired Dominican citizenship. He appeared on the list, which was obtained by OCCRP, under his original last name, Mahdavifar, but with an apparent typo – it was misspelled as ‘Mahsavifar.’ The name was familiar to a reporter who recalled it from earlier investigations into a pyramid scheme in Iran.

‘Everything Looked Official’

Victims of the Palinure scheme, one of the most infamous pyramid schemes in Iran, were easy to locate, and many expressed frustration that the man convicted of running the scheme was living abroad while they were still seeking justice in vain.

An investor in Palinure, Ali Reza, who asked to use a pseudonym out of concern for his safety, said he went to an office in Iran to hand over cash that he believed would be added to a growing investment portfolio. Investors provided capital to Palinure using bank transfers and direct cash payments to others in the network.

“[Mahan and his associate] showed us a website, saying the company was registered in the U.S.… Everything looked official,” Ali Reza told OCCRP. “But of course, it was all just a formality.” 

Their testimonies match dozens of other victim accounts told on blogs and a documentary on Iranian TV. 

Mahan’s lawyers told OCCRP that the “documentary, alleged victim blogs, and statements from alleged victims you spoke with are not conclusive evidence of a pyramid scheme, which is typically substantiated through a clear paper trail.” 

Victims told OCCRP they were encouraged to deposit significant savings and promised monthly returns, but after a few early payouts — money that came not from successful investments, but new recruits into the scheme — the money dried up. According to victims’ testimonies, monthly returns were initially promised in the range of 20 percent to 25 percent, but this figure quickly dropped to 15 percent, then four percent, before ceasing entirely.   

Fraudulent investment schemes proliferated in Iran during the early 2000s, capitalizing on citizens squeezed by corruption and systemic economic mismanagement. 

While Iran was subject to growing international sanctions and financial isolation, the schemes — often masquerading as sophisticated, international investment vehicles — attracted thousands of Iranians employed across a variety of professions with promises of fast, risk-free profits.

Palinure’s YouTube channel shows some Palinure organizers hosting workshops in Dubai and Thailand. Palinure paid prominent U.S. motivational speaker Randy Gage, who was already popular in Iran, to promote its investment scheme at one event. The video was then posted on the ‘Palinure International’ YouTube channel.

“What were the reasons you joined? What was the vision that you have for yourself? … I know the dream many of you have: I want to be rich, I want to be successful,” Gage told the audience at the Dubai seminar.

Gage told OCCRP he was invited at the last minute to Dubai in 2008 to run a leadership workshop. Once he landed, he said, he was picked up by a Rolls Royce limo. He said he was paid something in the region of $25,000 to $30,000 for the event. 

Gage told OCCRP Palinure staff “had a lot of money,” adding that he was completely unaware that it was a pyramid scheme. Shown pictures of himself with Mahan and his wife, Gage said he didn’t know the couple. “I didn’t endorse anybody,” he told reporters. “I don’t know anything about it,” he said, adding: “I do a million of them. Judging by that tie, I can say this was a long time ago.”

In 2007, Palinure’s website said the “Palinure Financial Group” had been “internationalized” and in September 2008 the company Palinure International LLC was incorporated in Oregon, with a Californian branch at a residential mailing address. Reporters matched the Palinure U.S. company addresses in Oregon and California with those displayed in videos on Palinure’s YouTube account.

Californian property records identified Sousan Loftian, an Iranian-American woman, at the address given for Palinure. Reached by telephone, she told OCCRP that she had agreed to list her home as the mailing address for the Oregon company following a request from friends who “wanted to establish a betting company,” but that the company never did any work at that address. 

“I just did some admin work for them,” Loftian said, explaining that the representatives from the company were Iranians based between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. “They intended to [establish the business]. I showed them the area where they can rent a place and stuff, and they wanted to, but they never did anything. They never came, they never did,” she told OCCRP. 

In 2009, a branch of the Oregon company was registered in California with a new address at a nondescript commercial unit. In 2015, the California Franchise Tax Board, the state’s tax agency, suspended the company’s business for failing to file returns. The board declined to provide any further information, citing taxpayer confidentiality.

Reporters found no financial records that would allow them to verify whether any money moved through the Palinure companies in the U.S.

Golden Passports

According to his lawyers, Mahan departed Iran in July 2009. They told OCCRP Mahan worked with “other media outlets” as well as a Persian-language media outlet based in Europe, and that his work “addressed human rights, political repression, public health, and government abuse.” 

Mahan “is a recognized film studies scholar, author, and filmmaker whose work actively opposes the Iranian regime and its oppression of women,” the firm wrote, adding that “allegations” of Mahan’s involvement in the Palinure scheme appear to be a continuation of “malicious [Iranian government] tactics, intended to harm his reputation and silence his advocacy.”

Reporters attempted to trace Mahan’s route from Tehran to Texas, and found evidence that he and his wife spent time in Dubai after leaving Iran. By 2014, Mahan’s wife had acquired a one-bedroom apartment on the 31st floor of Al Shera Tower, located in Dubai’s luxurious waterfront area, Jumeirah Lake Towers, according to Dubai property data obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a U.S.-based nonprofit researching international crime and conflict. 

The Mahans appeared to own property at that time next door to another convicted Palinure founder. This Palinure fraudster used a Dominica passport to acquire the Dubai apartment next door, while Mahan’s wife used her Iranian passport to purchase their apartment. 

OCCRP reporters also discovered Mahan’s name on a document listing people who had obtained citizenship for Dominica. Mahan and his wife obtained Dominica passports in 2014, while the case against them for alleged fraud and illicit enrichment was underway in Iran. (Mahan’s wife was eventually acquitted.)

It is unclear how Mahan obtained his Dominica passport, but the Caribbean island makes citizenship available to foreign nationals making a large investment into the country: a roughly $100,000 payment at the time Mahan and his wife obtained their passports, or a large real-estate purchase in a government-approved investment, plus processing and broker fees, and more for additional family members. 

Mahan’s acquisition of the Dominica passport was done legally, his lawyers said, and any attempt to associate it with illicit activity were “false and misleading.”

Westmore from RUSI said that the high price of such so-called “golden passports” means they are only an option for the wealthiest investors, whether legitimate or criminal.

Citizenship-by-investment is “not an option for your standard criminal because of the sums of money involved,” she said, adding that possessing a golden passport doesn’t necessarily indicate that you are a criminal. But “these schemes, even from a criminal and corrupt perspective, you are talking about the higher level, the people who are making millions and millions from criminal activities. For the vast majority of criminals who don’t make that kind of money, this is not something that would ever cross their radar.” 

The office of the prime minister of Dominica and the Dominica Citizenship by Investment Unit did not respond to OCCRP’s requests for comment. 

It’s not clear exactly when Mahan moved permanently to the U.S., but reporters traced his presence there back to 2015, identifying him and his wife in photos published online from the “Hollywood Half Marathon” in California that year. Months later, in August 2015, an indictment in Iran listed Mahdavifar’s location as unknown, and a summons to trial and travel ban were issued against him for his alleged role in the Palinure fraud. 

And real estate investment documents obtained by OCCRP offer an insight into how he may have immigrated to the U.S.: in 2010 Mahan invested $500,000 in a glass-fronted retail and office building in Seattle. The real estate documents set out income distribution and property ownership stakes for investors in a project advertised by American Life, a firm specialized in ensuring “successful immigration for our investors to the United States,” according to company records. Mahan’s contribution would have qualified him for an EB-5 U.S. immigrant investment visa.  

Mahan’s lawyers did not comment on questions about the source of the funds for this investment. 

Darrell Sanders, the Vice President of American Life, said it was the U.S. government’s responsibility to carry out “an in-depth review of the source of [the] funds” of people investing to qualify for an immigration visa. 

Sanders said that funds can be accepted unless the initial transfer triggers an issue with the U.S. Treasury Department. Immigration officials may not approve a visa if they cannot see “where the funds originated from and how they moved,” he added.

OCCRP filed requests for information to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operating with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). ICE and USCIS denied OCCRP’s request for information on Mahan’s visa application, entry into the country, and what background checks and procedures the department performed, citing privacy concerns. An information request to the U.S. Department of State was denied on procedural grounds.  

Mahan’s lawyers said his acquisition of U.S. citizenship and legal name change were “transparently documented and subject to multiple national and international background checks.”

In 2017, Mahan graduated from Santa Monica College, a community college in Los Angeles with a degree in journalism, according to a profile of him in a student-run media outlet. He then enrolled in the film and media studies master’s program at California’s Chapman University in Orange, and was awarded an M.A. in 2019 with a thesis titled “Iranian Cinema in Transition: Relative Truth and Morality in Asghar Farhadi’s Films.” The cost of the program at the time was nearly $50,000 without a scholarship, according to archived pages on Chapman University’s website. 

He began speaking at film events, discussing topics including ‘Resistance and Resistant Media,’ using his original last name, Mahdavifar. By early 2020, however, he was introduced at the Annual Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference as Mazyar Mahan. 

Mahan also enrolled in a PhD course at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he was a teaching associate until his recent graduation, according to the university’s website. 

Real estate records show that in June 2021, Mahan and his wife purchased a $336,000 house in Dallas, Texas, with a mortgage. The deed features the new name Mahan, as well as a new name for his wife. In 2024, the couple used their new names to register on the Texas electoral roll. 

Searching for Justice

Ganji said he spent about a year inside the Palinure system before accepting the reality that it was a scam. “Later, a few friends and I realized the company didn’t even exist,” he said.

He and other victims gathered together to file a lawsuit, in which he said he is the lead plaintiff.

Initially, 4,000 plaintiffs were identified, he said, adding that the case later spread to several cities across Iran, with more individuals added along the way. Meanwhile, the judiciary also opened several other cases involving dozens of victims.

“[Mahan] has been convicted. The ruling has been issued. But unfortunately, they are fugitives,” he said. 

As some of the defendants had left the country — including Mahan himself — the trial proceeded in their absence. In 2016, the court sentenced Mahan to three years in prison and imposed millions of dollars in penalties owed to both the victims and the state. 

One of the victims, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said that since losing all her money to Palinure she has been unable to sleep. Amid the financial stress and instability she now faces, the woman is focused on recovering her money and finding some peace.

“I’m no longer thinking about them going to prison — I just want my money back. They hurt me deeply, they tortured me, and they played a major role in my downfall,” she told OCCRP.

“My mother suffered a stroke because of this and nearly died. She knew how hard I had worked for that money, and when she found out I had lost it, it broke her.”

“In the past, you could work three jobs and make ends meet — now it’s not possible anymore. Now, I count every month when my rent is due and when I have to leave the house.” 

Mr. N, another investor given a pseudonym for his safety, said the scam and the problems it caused him contributed to his divorce. He said his sister had also invested in Palinure, and was still upset with him over what happened. “The capital my sister invested was money she had saved little by little, not buying clothes or anything, just saving, and it was lost. I really don’t want to remember the details,” he said.

Another Palinure victim, who asked not to be identified for security reasons, said she no longer believes justice will ever be served.

“I don’t believe they’ll be held accountable because there’s no justice… But at least they themselves know who they are and what they’ve done,” she said.

“Wherever they go — America, Washington, Maryland — it won’t change who they are.”