Reza Zarrab is the key fig­ure in the cor­rup­tion brought to light on Decem­ber 17 2014 through a series of phone record­ings. He was arrest­ed in the Unit­ed States on March 19 2016.

commission-parlementaireAlong with the busi­ness­man, four of the AKP’s min­is­ters of that peri­od were impli­cat­ed: Muam­mer Güler, Ege­men Bağış, Zafer Çağlayan and Erdoğan Bayrak­tar; the direc­tor of Halk­bank was also involved. Large sums of mon­ey in trunks and “shoe­box­es”, as well as gold bul­lion were seized in the homes of the banker, of Reza and of the sons of three ministers.

There was no fol­low-up. The oper­a­tion was con­sid­ered “an attempt­ed coup d’E­tat” orga­nized by the “par­al­lel State” led by Fetul­lah Gülen, ex bud­dy, and now reign­ing as num­ber one ene­my of Erdoğan’s. Of course the des­ig­na­tion of “Coup d’Etat” did­n’t con­cern the embez­zle­ment but the jus­tice’s sud­den “clean hands” oper­a­tion against its authors.

The inves­ti­ga­tion was abrupt­ly end­ed fol­low­ing a change of pros­e­cu­tor, the trans­fer of the police­men who had fol­lowed his orders and the con­dem­na­tion of cer­tain journalists…

Best of all, the mon­ey was returned to its “own­ers”, with inter­est, if you please. A part of which, most like­ly, cir­cu­lat­ed in crooked invest­ments in the Unit­ed States.

reza-zarrab-prix exportReza, a 32 year old busi­ness­man at the top of “suc­cess” has every­thing a man could want.

Mar­ried to Turk­ish singer Ebru Gün­deş, he is beloved by Erdoğan and his gang. At the time of the accu­sa­tions, Erdoğan had clear­ly deemed him a “bene­fac­tor” and Muam­mer Güler, then Min­is­ter of the Inte­ri­or, had declared he was “ready to lie down in front of Reza”, if the courts attempt­ed to both­er him… In June 2015, he was hailed as top busi­ness­man and received the “export prize” from the hands of the min­is­ters themselves.

Of Iran­ian and Turk­ish cit­i­zen­ship, Reza Zarrab is indict­ed in the States under the name of Rıza Sar­raf, along with two Ira­ni­ans, Hos­sein Najafzadeh and Camelia Jamshidy. They are charged with fraud, vio­la­tion of the embar­go, mon­ey laun­der­ing, and bank­ing fraud involv­ing Iran’s nation­al petro­le­um com­pa­ny, the Mel­lat Bank, along with sev­er­al com­pa­nies in Turkey. In ques­tion, trans­ac­tions in the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars prof­it­ing Mel­lat Bank.

His two cronies are present­ly free, but Reza Zarrab was arrest­ed on arrival in Mia­mi, and remains behind bars fol­low­ing his hear­ing before the fed­er­al court. He is at risk of a 75 year jail sentence.

Well, this may be just as well for Reza, because his asso­ciate Babek Zen­cani on tri­al since Octo­ber 3 2015 in Iran for hav­ing caused dam­ages to the State to the tune of 2, 8 bil­lions of dol­lars, was sen­tenced to death on March 6th last.

What still needs to be seen: if the arm of some will be long enough to have the mat­ter dis­missed, and if the Amer­i­can pros­e­cu­tor Preet Bharara and the police­men who pro­ceed­ed to the arrest will be transferred.

Hel­lo, this is Sul­tan Erdoğan here”….

Headline illustration : Reza’s arrest in 2014

Français : Reza Zarrab der­rière des bar­reaux améri­cains Cliquez pour lire

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