3 charged with sanctions evasion in USA

A Turkish businessman, Reza Zarrab, has been arrested in the USA on charges of conspiring to evade US sanctions on Iran, money laundering, and bank fraud. The arrest was made shortly before an indictment setting out the charges against Mr Zarrab and 2 co-conspirators, Camelia Jamshidy and Hossein Najafzadeh, was unsealed on Monday last week.

According to the indictment, between at least 2010 and 2015 the 3 conspirators engaged in transactions on behalf of the government of Iran and several other blocked Iranian entities, laundered the proceeds of those transactions, and defrauded a number of financial institutions by concealing the nature of the transactions.  Among the alleged beneficiaries of the conspiracy were Bank Mellat, National Iranian Oil Company, Naftiran Intertrade Company Ltd, and Hong Kong Intertrade Company, all of which are still subject to primary US sanctions. The Department of Justice’s press release is here.