By the 1930s, Baligh had moved to Tehran and immersed himself in its growing urban culture, which was rapidly shifting under Reza Shah’s modernization policies. The expanding city, with its influx of foreign investors, new governmental institutions, and increasingly complex bureaucracy, became fertile ground for a con man of Baligh’s intelligence. By the 1940s, he had become one of the most talked-about criminal minds in the Iranian capital.
The Pact and the Betrayal
The year 1948 marked a turning point in Mehdi Baligh’s criminal trajectory. He joined forces with two other notorious thieves of the era: Mehdi Nazari and Houshang Mojtabaei. The three formed a secret pact: if one of them were to be arrested, the others would do everything in their power to free him. It was a gentleman’s agreement, but among thieves, honor can be as fragile as trust.
Baligh, ever the daring operator, was the first to be arrested. Unable to tolerate life behind bars and still believing in the bond he had with his comrades, he penned a desperate letter to his brother, requesting him to contact Nazari and Mojtabaei for help. What he received instead was silence—and betrayal. Not only did his former friends refuse to assist him, but he soon learned they had taken advantage of his absence to seduce and deceive his wife.
This betrayal ignited a storm within Baligh. Upon his release, he was no longer just a thief—he was a man on a mission for revenge.