The money-exchange business owes between $4 million and $5 million to hundreds of distraught customers
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Hundreds of distraught customers of a North Vancouver business that specializes in moving money between Canada and Iran are demanding answers after the company suddenly froze all deposits, withdrawals and transactions.
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Postmedia was there earlier this week as dozens of customers filled the parking lot in front of Apadana Currency Exchange at 1705 Marine Dr. and then stormed into its office to grill the owner. Some of them said they had not received money they were expecting for covering household, tuition and health-care bills.
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The owner acknowledges between 200 and 300 customers are owed between $4 million and $5 million.
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The case offers insight into how members of the Iranian diaspora cannot use mainstream financial institutions to send to or receive money from Iran, and it highlights gaps in regulation of money services businesses in B.C..
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“Now, I regret it. I should have been smarter. But life is hectic,” said Masoud Nazari, who was waiting to receive about $22,000, part of an inheritance intended to cover family expenses. “You trust there is a licence on the wall, and this business is on a main street in North Vancouver. It’s in the open.
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“I’m one of the average losers at $22,000,” he added, adding that a friend had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
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“People are sending or receiving money because they are moving to Canada or sending money for tuition or medical expenses. A young woman’s mom is in hospital and she has to pay bills and had been asking relatives to send money and now the money is gone.”
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Canada joined many other countries in imposing economic sanctions against Iran in 2025. Those sanctions mean there is no direct way for currency exchanges in Canada to move funds to and from Iran. So they rely on informal networks that buy and sell Iranian currency in a third country.
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The owner of Apadana, Hamidreza Karimi, told Postmedia that like most money-services businesses that facilitate personal payments to and from Iran, he uses a trusted partner in Dubai.
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“We transfer money from Iran to Dubai, and from there to here. Because of some problems, especially the sanctions, the Dubai office that we used, they couldn’t pay our money there. That’s some part of our problem. We had other problems, too. I reached the point that I didn’t have enough liquidity to pay the people back.”
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Karimi said he tried to manage by taking short-term loans from customers and paying them interest, but this wasn’t enough in the end, and on the weekend, he suspended activities.
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He initially was going to declare bankruptcy, but, faced with crowds of angry customers, is now working with a committee of them to declare his assets and somehow find a way to repay them.
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Dina Ser, the director of Hafez Exchange, one of the longest-running currency exchanges in North Vancouver, said 90 per cent of money-services businesses like hers use Dubai in the United Arab Emirates as a financial hub to buy and sell Iranian rial.
