The case of Turkish-Iranian tycoon Reza Zarrab is being closely watched in Turkey
Turkish-Iranian tycoon Reza Zarrab(34) was arrested in Miami in March 2016 for allegedly conspiring to evade US sanctions against Iran, engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions on behalf of the government of Tehran, money laundering and bank fraud, and faces up to 95 years in prison.
On Tuesday, it emerged Reza Zarrab has pleaded guilty and was now the US government’s star witness, and is set to testify against Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla on a series of international corruption allegations that reached the highest levels of the Turkish government.
‘$500,000 in a chocolate box’
It all started tumbling down for Mr Zarrab in 2013 when he was detained by Turkish authorities in a wide-ranging corruption investigation, along with the sons of two cabinet ministers.
Prosecutors accused Mr Zarrab of involvement in facilitating Iranian money transfers via gold smuggling, setting up bogus companies to buy oil and gas from Iran in exchange for gold and bribing senior ministers to cover it up.
The alleged “gifts” were said to include a $350,000 watch, a $37,000 piano and millions of dollars in cash – some of which was reportedly transferred to politicians or bureaucrats involved in the scheme in shoeboxes.
In one incident, a Turkish government minister is claimed to have received $500,000 in cash from Mr Zarrab, which was delivered in a chocolate box, along with a silver plate.
The allegations erupted when audio recordings of conversations between Mr Zarrab and several politicians were leaked online.
Reza Zarrab denied all the bribery accusations at the time and claimed his trading business worked within the law.
Three cabinet ministers resigned as their sons were implicated in these recordings, and a fourth was dismissed from his post.
President Erdogan, who was then the prime minister, claimed the recordings were manipulated, condemned the investigation and called it “a judicial coup” orchestrated by the Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of his government who is currently in self-imposed exile in the US.
Soon the prosecutors were removed from the case, police investigators were reassigned and the inquiry dropped.
Mr Zarrab was released after 70 days in detention, and was now being described by Mr Erdogan as a philanthropist who had made huge contributions to the Turkish society.
Mr Zarrab would boast in a later interview that he had helped reduce Turkey’s current account deficit and received an award in a ceremony attended by President Erdogan.
[adrotate group=”9″]Disney trip gone wrong
But the Zarrab saga took another turn when he decided to go to Disney World with his wife and daughter in March 2016.
It is still not clear why Mr Zarrab went to the US. Some speculate that he must have known he could have been detained but took the risk anyway since he feared his life would be at stake if he stayed in Turkey; others that he wanted to avoid a possible extradition to Iran.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gestures as he speaks during a meeting in Ankara.
In November, speculation grew as to the whereabouts of Reza Zarrab, as reports in the US media suggested that he was removed from a federal prison and was now co-operating with prosecutors to strike a plea deal.
An NBC report also suggested that special counsel Robert Mueller was investigating whether the Turkish government had offered former US National Security Advisor Michael Flynn a sum of over $15m to ensure that Mr Zarrab’s case was dropped, and to work towards the abduction of Fethullah Gulen, whom the government claims was the mastermind of the 2016 failed coup plot in Turkey.
[adrotate banner=”69″]BBC
