Mahafarid Amir Khosravi was hanged at a prison north of Tehran, said Iranian media

The Iranian government has executed a billionaire businessman at the heart of a £1.5bn state bank scam, state television has reported.

Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, also known as Amir Mansour Aria, was hanged at Evin prison, north of the capital Tehran, after Iran’s supreme court upheld his death sentence.

The fraud, believed to be the country’s biggest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, involved using forged documents to get credit at one of Iran’s top financial insitutions, Bank Saderat, to purchase assets, including state-owned companies such as major steel producer Khuzestan Steel Co.

His business empire included 35 companies and the fraud began in 2007, according the Iranian media reports. A total of 39 defendants were convicted in the case, with four receiving death sentences, two getting