US arrest of Iranian gold trader linked to Turkish graft scandal puts Erdogan on spot

[unhappycamper]

http://atimes.com/2016/03/us-arrest-of-iranian-gold-trader-linked-to-turkish-graft-scandal-puts-erdogan-on-spot-again/

The arrest of Reza Zarrab, the flamboyant, well-connected and controversial Iranian-Turkish gold trader, in US recently over a fraudulent scheme to help the Iranian government launder hundreds of millions of dollars and evade economic sanctions, has shaken the Turkish government and may reopen a 2013 corruption case that Ankara was trying to project as an attempted coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It comes days ahead of Erdogan’s trip to the US. On March 22, the Turkish parliament hurriedly passed laws bringing new curbs on exchanging information about Turkish nationals with foreign authorities which Opposition parties say is mainly aimed at protecting Zarrab

US arrest of Iranian gold trader linked to Turkish graft scandal puts Erdogan on spot
By Oliver Tempest on March 25, 2016

ISTANBUL–The arrest of an Istanbul-based high profile Azerbaijani and Turkish businessman, Reza Zarrab, 33, in Miami on 19 March may have reopened a two-year-old corruption scandal which shook Turkey’s government so strongly in 2013 that to this day President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regards it as an attempted coup against him.

News of the arrest was initially ignored by pro-government newspapers in Turkey but has been hailed by the opposition as a possible political breakthrough. The New York Prosecutor, Preet Bharara, who filed the charges and ordered the arrest, has become a hero to critics of the government with the number of his followers on Twitter, rocketing in five days from 7,000 to 243,000. Replying to a reported flood of offers of gifts from well-wishers in Turkey, Bharara declared on Twitter “I do love shish kebab but I don’t think I can accept gifts just for doing my job.”

Zarrab was seemingly unaware before his arrest that he was under surveillance by the US authorities or might be facing possible indictment. A high profile young businessman and Istanbul socialite, on close terms with Turkey’s ruling AKP (Justice and Development Party), he and his Turkish pop star wife, Ebru Gündeş, were familiar figures in the Turkish press and regarded as an inviolable part of the country’s new pro-Erdoğan establishment.

All this changed on 20 March with a statement issued by the American Department of Justice announcing the arrest of Zarrab. The Department alleges he and two associates, Camelia Jamshidy, 29, and Hossein Najafzadeh 65, both Iranian nationals, orchestrated ‘fraudulent transactions that were intended to hide the fact that the transactions were for the benefit of the Government of Iran or other sanctioned Iranian entities and to launder the proceeds of that illegal activity.’