Hasan, 56, and his wife are retired nurses. Yet retirement has brought them little rest. Both have had to take second jobs caring for elderly, bedridden people in care homes, working day and night shifts to earn extra money. Much of what they make is sent to their daughters in Canada to help keep them at university.<\/p>\n
When either of them is at home, they try to rest by watching television soap operas, unwinding before preparing themselves for another round of hard work caring for demanding octogenarian patients. But their ageing Samsung television no longer runs applications such as Cinema and Movie Javan.<\/p>\n
Last week, Hasan searched almost every shop along Jomhouri Street, particularly the six floors of the Aladdin mobile-phone centre, which is crammed with new and second-hand phones, electronic devices and accessories. Eventually, he found a third-generation TV Box in packaging bearing the Xiaomi brand, apparently made in China, the country that has become Iran\u2019s favourite trading partner.<\/p>\n
He paid 9 million tomans, about \u00a332.14 at today\u2019s exchange rate, for the Xiaomi TV Box.<\/p>\n
It turned out to be fake.<\/p>\n
Hasan tells me:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, my wife and I together earn a maximum of 80 million tomans a month, including our pensions, about \u00a3285.71 at today\u2019s rate. So that fake Xiaomi TV Box cost us around 11 per cent of our total monthly income.\u201d<\/p>\n
Out of sympathy, I tell him: \u201cI have read in Central Bank reports that the income poverty line is below 73 million tomans. So you and your wife are only slightly above the poverty line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hasan sighs deeply.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have learned that not everything that shines is gold. But how can I distinguish genuine goods from fake ones?\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, I accompany him to Chahrsou Mobile and TV Accessories Centre. On the ground floor, there is a vast Xiaomi shop, complete with all the paraphernalia of an official-looking outlet and young employees wearing Xiaomi uniforms.<\/p>\n
Hasan asks for a genuine third-generation Xiaomi TV Box.<\/p>\n
A young salesman politely replies: \u201cWait a moment. I need to call our warehouse to find out the latest price.\u201d<\/p>\n
The warehouse employee tells his colleague that a genuine third-generation Xiaomi TV Box, including a guarantee, costs around 20 million tomans, approximately \u00a371.43.<\/p>\n
Hasan agrees to buy it, wincing at the price. All he and his wife wanted was to upgrade their old television.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I wanted to buy a new smart TV,\u201d he tells me, \u201cand if I could find one on Digikala, the Iranian e-commerce company, I would have to pay around 150 million tomans in cash for a 55-inch QLED smart TV such as the Hisense QA55Q7FSHICHD. At today\u2019s exchange rate, that is a huge amount of money. Tomorrow, after another tit-for-tat attack between Trump and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the price could be at least 20 per cent higher.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the end, Hasan buys the allegedly genuine third-generation Xiaomi TV Box on Wednesday evening, installs it and calls me to say that he is satisfied.<\/p>\n
But his experience is more than a story about a fake television accessory. It offers a glimpse into how Iran\u2019s increasingly isolated and distorted economy works.<\/p>\n
To understand it, I visit the overcrowded Aladdin Shopping Centre and its modern rival, Chahrsou, which stand on opposite sides of the Hafez Bridge on Jomhouri Street.<\/p>\n
Aladdin is a six-storey building regarded by Tehran\u2019s fire authorities as unsafe and highly vulnerable to fire. It is packed far beyond its intended capacity, rather like a beehive, with shops, repairers and accessory sellers squeezed into almost every available space. Its chaotic, overcrowded atmosphere is reminiscent of a bazaar in Kabul or Quetta, Pakistan.<\/p>\n
In January 2026, the shopping centre also became a scene of clashes between protesters and riot police during the unrest.<\/p>\n
On the pavement outside, stallholders sell second-hand mobile phones. Among the phones on display, however, are many that sellers do not admit are actually phones that have been snatched from their owners by street thieves and mobile-phone muggers.<\/p>\n
I climb a very narrow escalator to reach Saeed, a shopkeeper in the Aladdin centre, and ask him to explain the nitty-gritty of Iran\u2019s isolated, informal economy.<\/p>\n
He speaks loudly so that I can hear him above the noise.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no genuine representative of any major brand in Iran, let alone an exclusive representative, whether for Mercedes, BMW or even Xiaomi.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn reality, we businessmen register an importing company in Iran. We then used to fly to Dubai, buy goods in the wholesale markets, or travel to Guangzhou in mainland China to place orders. We could order both genuine and fake spare parts and electronic goods and then sell them here, either in Aladdin or across the street in Chahrsou.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have even registered a company as a representative of Samsung products. But there are several companies here claiming to represent Samsung. We put signs for Samsung, Apple, Bush, you name it, above our shops and claim that we sell genuine products.\u201d<\/p>\n
I ask him:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if you import Samsung mobile phones, while someone else imports BMW cars, don\u2019t these imported products have to be officially registered?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d he replies. \u201cAnd that is the important point. It is also where the government makes a fortune from the pockets of end users.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, BMW makes around $4,000 profit on a 740, while the Iranian government makes $240,000 from customs duties and import tariffs, 60 times the manufacturer\u2019s profit.<\/p>\n
\u201cApple makes around $500 profit on each iPhone 17 Pro Max. Meanwhile, the Iranian government collects around $550 simply for registering the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo economic isolation, being an outcast economy, means the erosion of trust in international brands, while making the government and so-called brand representatives wealthier and end users more miserable. Have I understood you correctly?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost,\u201d Saeed says. \u201cBut I must add that tycoons with close connections to IRGC-affiliated companies enjoy a security margin and take the lion\u2019s share of imports. Their profits are incomparable with ours as petty dealers and so-called representatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays, smugglers bring us famous brands through Kurdistan. Dubai and Guangzhou are no longer the places to go to place orders.\u201d<\/p>\n
His account brings me back to Hasan\u2019s fake Xiaomi box.<\/p>\n
For ordinary Iranians such as Hasan and his wife, a television accessory costing a few million tomans is not a trivial purchase. It can represent a significant share of an entire month\u2019s income. In an economy where sanctions, currency depreciation, import restrictions, unofficial intermediaries, counterfeiting and smuggling have become intertwined, even the simple act of buying a television box becomes a gamble.<\/p>\n
The result is an economy in which consumers are asked to pay more for less certainty, while those with the right connections can profit from the very isolation that makes everyday life increasingly expensive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hasan, 56, and his wife are retired nurses. Yet retirement has brought them little rest. Both have had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,184,85,46],"class_list":["post-605798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}