Enter Erdogan in US Prosecution of Iranian Gold

Finally, how Turkey worked with Iran to circumvent US sanctions … a plot well known for many years … Dubai UAE at the center, of course! A plea deal that may touch Robert Mueller’s investigation of Michael Flynn and his counterparts in Turkey. Erdogan must be furious! Recently NATO declared war on Turkey in an exercise in Norway …

Gold trader Reza Zarrab to reveal Turkish corruption ‘of global proportions’ after plea deal

A Turkish-Iranian gold trader has agreed a plea deal with prosecutors, who say he will reveal the inside story of a plot to evade US sanctions in Iran “in a scheme so large that it affected the economies of countries in the Middle East”.

Reza Zarrab, who is being held by the authorities at an undisclosed location, pleaded guilty on October 26 to all seven counts against him, including conspiracy to violate the United States sanctions against Iran, newly unsealed court records show.

He has become the US government’s star witness and will testify on Wednesday against former co-defendent Mehmet Hakan Atilla, at a trial that began this week in New York’s Federal District Court.

Prosecutor David Denton Jr told jurors Zarrab would “tell you the story firsthand, as he lived it”.

“The evidence is going to pull back the curtain on a fraud of truly global proportions,” Denton said. “Billions of Iranian dollars moving in a scheme so large that it affected the economies of countries in the Middle East, and so large that it was protected by government ministers in Turkey and Iran.”

The trial is expected to further strain relations between the US and Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly fears the case may reveal incriminating evidence about the government’s involvement in helping Iran dodge US sanctions by using gold bullion to buy Iranian oil and laundering the money through US financial systems on Iran’s behalf.

Erdogan has repeatedly asked the US government to free Zarrab, claiming the case is a move to undermine his country’s economy.

There has also been speculation the plea deal includes Zarrab cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian inteference in the US presidential campaign, in which Turkey allegedly offered President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn money to secure Zarrab’s release.

In the New York case, US prosecutors made clear they intend to introduce evidence collected in a 2013 Turkish corruption investigation, but never used in trial there because the case was thrown out by Erdogan’s administration.

My diaries …
○ ‘Sultan’ Erdogan Attempts to Block Graft Probe In AKP Party | Dec. 2013 |
○ Deep Throat Inside Erdogan’s Government of Turkey

Continued below the fold …

Iranian gold stars in Turkish corruption scandal | Al Monitor – Dec. 2013 |

It is difficult to predict how the bribery/corruption investigation into several Turkish ministers will end. Although there are those who frame the event as a power struggle between the Fethullah Gulen movement and the government, conspiracy theories expand its dimensions to include the United States and Iran. With the detentions of Suleyman Aslan, CEO of Halkbank, and Riza Sarraf, an Iranian businessman who deals with gold and was originally named Reza Zarrab, the focus is now on the Iran-Halkbank-gold triangle.

The government is looking for US and Israeli hands in the operation because of the use of Halkbank to circumvent the sanctions imposed on Iran. Prosecution sources stress that the investigation is aimed not at Halkbank but its CEO, after a search of his house yielded $4.5 million hidden in shoeboxes. But the arrival in Turkey of David Cohen, the US Treasury’s undersecretary of terrorism and financial intelligence, shows the importance of the Sarraf-Halkbank file in the affair.

Since Iran was banned from using the international money-transfer system SWIFT as of March 2012 as stipulated by US-EU embargoes, there have been many media reports that Tehran has been using Turkey’s Halkbank to evade the restriction.
According to reports the police have delivered to prosecutors, this is how the plan worked: A system was hatched to bypass SWIFT queries by setting up front companies in China. Then, money was transferred from Iran with falsified documents to bank accounts opened in the names of those companies in the guise of reimbursements for imports from China. The money was immediately transferred to the accounts of real or front companies in Turkey as payment for exports, and used to purchase gold. The gold was then sent via couriers to Iran, or to Dubai to be forwarded to Iran.

According to economist Ugur Gurses, this complex system arose to address Turkey’s inability to pay Iran through routine channels for the oil and natural gas it was buying.

This is why Turkey opened an account for Iran at Halkbank. Iran converted the deposits in these accounts to gold. Gold procured from international markets was first brought to Turkey and then sent to Iran. As the intermediary company was registered in Turkey, Turkey’s gold imports and exports rose steadily as Turkey paid its debts to Iran. In three years, $8 billion worth of gold was sent to Iran.

To counter this scheme, the United States banned gold exports to Iran in July 2013. This resulted in the accumulation of nearly $13 billion in imported gold in Turkey.