Crook Claims Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey Tried to Broker U.S.-Turkey Prisoner Swap

November 29, 2017 By administrator

Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab flipped for the feds and told a court that President Trump’s pals tried to get him out of an American jail.

Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey tried to broker a prisoner exchange between the United States and Turkey to free their Turkish client, Reza Zarrab, he testified in Manhattan federal court Wednesday.

Zarrab said on the stand he hired lawyers to attempt to negotiate a prisoner exchange between the U.S. and Turkey “within the legal limits,” but that they were unsuccessful. He did not name the attorneys, but Giuliani and Mukasey were previously identified as the lawyers working to strike a diplomatic deal for Zarrab.

Zarrab, a Turkish gold trader, was the architect and main facilitator of a cash-for-gold scheme to help Turkey buy Iranian oil and evade sanctions.

Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is a long-time friend of Trump who was considered for several Cabinet posts. Mukasey was attorney general under President George W. Bush.

Giuliani and Mukasey avoided mentioning the “central role” of Iran in the charges against Zarrab on filings submitted to the court about their work and said the case had no serious implications for U.S. national security. Judge Richard Berman slammed the omissions as “disingenuous” earlier this year. (Giuliani previously called Iranians “suicidal homicidal maniacs.”)

It is not known who the American in Turkish custody was, but Ankara has been cracking down on Americans since an attempted coup in 2016.

In one instance, an American journalist arrested at the Turkish-Syrian border was told by a judge that it was “all your government’s fault.” Other American citizens, and Turkish nationals working for American embassies, have been arrested and accused of links to Gulen and his followers. They include an American pastor and a NASA physicist with dual citizenship.

Prosecutors on Tuesday revealed that Zarrab flipped and was cooperating with authorities in the case against co-defendant Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a former state bank deputy general manager, who is also charged with evading sanctions.

On Wednesday, Zarrab also admitted to bribing a former Turkish minister of the economy with more than €45 million so he could trade gold with Iran in spite of sanctions.

“He asked about the profit margins, and he said, I can broker this providing there’s a profit share, 50-50,” Zarrab testified through a translator.

Zafer Caglayan, the former economy minister, was charged in the case in September.

Zarrab’s testimony over as many as three days in the trial is expected to shed light on the far-reaching sanction dodge scheme, and may even implicate high-ranking Turkish officials.

The allegations have roots in Turkey’s 2013 corruption scandal, which alleged that top Turkish ministers took bribes to sign off on the scheme. The possibility of domestic scandal has also led Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the prime minister in 2013, to attempt to cajole the US government into releasing Zarrab without trial.

Zarrab’s plea, in which he admitted to seven different charges, also raised questions about whether he may be cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump administration.

As reported earlier this month, Zarrab’s release was allegedly one of the requests floated to former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a December 2016 meeting with Turkish representatives. Mueller is reportedly investigating their $15 million offer to Flynn in exchange for freeing Zarrab and kidnapping exiled Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/strong-evidence-that-us-special-operations-forces-massacred-civilians-in-somalia

U.S. Says Alleged Mastermind In Iran Sanctions Case Won’t Stand Trial

November 28, 2017 By administrator

Both Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla (left) and Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab are in U.S. custody. (combo photo)

A wealthy Turkish-Iranian businessman who was the alleged mastermind in what U.S. prosecutors say was a high-level conspiracy to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions will not stand trial this week as scheduled, though the case is proceeding against his co-defendant.

U.S. Judge Richard Berman announced on November 27 as jury selection got under way on the case that Reza Zarrab will not not stand trial and that Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla “is the only defendant in this trial.”

Both Atilla and Zarrab are in U.S. custody.

Berman gave no explanation for Zarrab’s absence from the trial after a series of unexplained no-shows at pretrial hearings. The development deepened the mystery surrounding the case and renewed speculation that Zarrab has cut a deal with prosecutors to testify rather than go on trial.

NBC News, Bloomberg News, and other U.S. media have reported that Zarrab, 34, is cooperating with U.S. prosecutors.

Zarrab’s name appeared on a list of possible witnesses and names that may come up during the trial, which was handed out to prospective jurors on November 27.

The close ties of Zarrab and other defendants with the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has turned the case into a major irritant in U.S.-Turkish relations.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag earlier on November 27 repeated Ankara’s demand that prosecutors drop the case, which he said had “no valid evidence” and “no legal basis.”

Bozdag, who is Ankara’s government spokesman, asserted that the aim of the case was to cause the collapse of Turkey’s economy, in an apparent reference to the plunge of the Turkish lira last week to a record low against the U.S. dollar in reaction to a development in the case.

U.S. prosecutors have denied Turkey’s accusations, while the judge has urged Turkey to provide any evidence it has that could prove the defendants’ innocence to the court rather than hurl accusations at the prosecutors.

In court papers, prosecutors allege that Zarrab used a network of businesses and Atilla’s bank, Turkish state-owned Halkbank, to funnel cash and gold to Iran while duping U.S. banks into processing the transactions.

The scheme, which allegedly occurred between 2010 and 2015, violated U.S. prohibitions against Iran using the U.S. financial system or U.S. dollars to transact business, prosecutors say.

Court documents say the defendants in carrying out the scheme paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes in cash and jewelry to Turkey’s then-economy minister, Mehmet Zafer Caglayan.

Caglayan, who has denied the charges, and six other high-ranking co-defendants in the case remain in Turkey.

In an indication of why the case has become so important to Erdogan, who has pressed repeatedly for Zarrab’s release, prosecutors said in a recent court filing that Zarrab once told another defendant he had spoken with Erdogan directly about the alleged scheme.

Bozdag said on November 27 that there was “pressure” on Zarrab to confess to “slanderous” claims.

Zarrab’s name has also come up in connection with allegations being investigated by U.S. Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In that case, investigators are probing whether Turkey’s government may have paid former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn to secure Zarrab’s release as well as the deportation of a U.S.-based Turkish cleric, whom Erdogan blames for a failed coup against him last year.

With reporting by NBC News, AFP, dpa, AP, and Reuters

The Talk of Turkey? A Politically Charged Trial in New York

November 26, 2017 By administrator

Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian businessman accused of conspiracy to violate United States sanctions against Iran, is scheduled to go on trial in New York on Monday. Credit Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By CARLOTTA GALL and BENJAMIN WEISER

ISTANBUL — The trial is about to start in a Lower Manhattan courtroom, but it is the talk of Turkish government officials, television and even cafes.

Turkey is churning over the prosecution by the American authorities of two prominent Turks accused of conspiring to violate United States sanctions against Iran. After a failed campaign to persuade American officials to drop the case, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week turned to damage control, angrily denigrating the whole judicial process.

On Monday, jury selection is to begin in the Federal District Court trial amid broad speculation that the lead defendant, Reza Zarrab, who is accused of managing a billion-dollar scheme to smuggle gold for Iranian oil, has entered into a plea bargain with the prosecution and may reveal damaging evidence about corruption and illegal dealings in high places.

If Mr. Zarrab has indeed become a government witness, prosecutors are still expected to proceed to trial against a co-defendant, Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a Turkish banker who has pleaded not guilty. Seven other defendants have been charged but remain at large, prosecutors have said.

Mr. Zarrab’s arrest in March 2016 — while on a family trip to Disney World — raised tensions between Turkey and the United States, and on the eve of trial, relations between the two NATO allies are now at their lowest point in years.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/world/europe/erdogan-reza-zarrab-trial.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

Turkey: Report: Dec. 17 graft probe linked with trafficking of drugs, arms (as much as $19.6 billion)

May 9, 2014 By administrator

May 08, 2014, Thursday/ 19:33:22/ TODAY’S ZAMAN/ ANKARA

The discovery by customs police of a large amount of heroin stashed in a truck back in 2007 clued police into a trail of money earned from drug and arms sales in an investigation that eventually branched out into the Dec. 17 graft operation, a Turkish daily said on Thursday.

According to the report in the Taraf daily, all the details of the corruption probe, which the government claimed was a coup plot, are present in the “Happani Group Assessment Report,” a report dated June 3, 2011, and prepared by a unit of the Bureau of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime (KOM) of the National Police Department.

Taraf reported that thanks to wiretaps conducted after the seizure of heroin in the truck, it was determined that a gang composed of both individuals and corporations laundered money illegally earned in Iran and Iraq in Turkey.

The daily said the seizure of 202 kilograms of heroin on Feb 12, 2007, from a truck at the Kapıkule border gate in Edirne province laid the foundation for the graft probe that went public on Dec. 17.

Taraf, summarizing the Happani report, said: “That is, it was determined that money earned through the smuggling of arms and drugs in Iran and Iraq was laundered at some exchange offices in the Grand Bazaar [in İstanbul]. Durak Exchange Office and a person called Abdullah were identified as being among the first who were involved such transfers [of money].”

According to Taraf, the sweeping purges in the police force that followed the Dec. 17 operation prevented police from going after heroin and weapons smuggles who were implicated in the probe.
“In the second and third phases of the [graft] operation, ‘drug and arms barons’ were also supposed to be arrested. But the operation ‘against the judiciary’ caused the part of the file dealing with drugs to remain incomplete,” Taraf daily said.

After the heroin was seized, İstanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office launched investigation number 2007/1258 into the heroin seized. As part of the investigation, a court order was obtained to wiretap the phones suspects in the case. “Wiretaps were carried out by the Edirne Department of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime,” the daily said.

The RotaHaber news portal published photographs of the operation in which police discovered the heroin on Thursday. Packages tightly sealed with scotch tape are seen lying in coffins taken from the truck.

In the search, conducted by customs police, Rotahaber said, out of 40 coffins on the truck, 29 had false bottoms. When the false bottoms were removed, 202 kilograms and 970 grams of heroin in 400 packages was discovered, the report said. The operation was conducted under the direction of Hanefi Avcı, then police chief of Edirne province, who was close to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) at the time.

According to the Taraf report, that investigation led the police to Reza Zarrab, whom the government has described as a philanthropist, and to the Happani family, which works for Zarrab. Zarrab is an İstanbul-based Azeri businessman of Iranian origin who was a major suspect in the Dec. 17 corruption probe.

In 2009 and 2010, the National Police Department reportedly received many letters informing about the issue. “For example, in a letter dated May 7, 2010, it was claimed that Reza Zarrab had laundered billions of dollars through exchange offices in [İstanbul’s] Beyazıt [neighborhood]. Based on this information, the number of people whose phones were wiretapped increased,” the daily said.

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu said at the party’s parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday that the Dec. 17 probe got started after police discovered heroin inside the truck at Turkey’s Kapıkule border gate, adding that the police had traced the heroin to a currency exchange office in İstanbul’s Grand Bazaar owned by an Iranian businessman.

That’s how the investigation started, the CHP leader had said. According to Kılıçdaroğlu, the National Intelligence Organization (MİT) became aware that the allegations could harm the government and warned Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in a report it submitted to the prime minister on April 18, 2013.

According to the report, as suspects — in which four former Cabinet ministers are also implicated — got wind of the investigation, the launch date of the operation was pushed forward, which also harmed the investigation into drugs and arms traffickers.

Wiretaps of the Durak Exchange Office at the Grand Bazaar, which the daily said is owned by Zarrab, opened the way for the police to uncover the corruption that was central to the Dec. 17 probe.

The daily said: “The connection with Zarrab was not discovered at the beginning. But, based on further investigation, police got on the track of Reza Zarrab and his driver Turgut Happani. That is, it is through the Durak Exchange Office that [police became aware that] Reza Zarrab and Turgut Happani were involved. Based on this information, [the phones of] Turgut Happani, Abdullah Happani, Serdal Happani, Şenel Happani and Reza Zarrab were wiretapped. The wiretaps led the police to Cabinet ministers in Ankara.”

The Hürriyet daily first reported on Dec. 21, 2013, shortly after the graft probe went public, that the Durak Exchange Office had led the police to launch the graft probe of Dec. 17, Taraf said. The Hürriyet story, which focused on Zarrab’s exchange office, said that the exchange office was used to launder as much as $19.6 billion.

According to the report in the Taraf daily, following an investigation conducted by the Finance Ministry’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), it was said that Durak Döviz A.Ş., Tural Ltd., and Pırlanta Ltd., which are auxiliary firms of Royal Holding A.Ş., engaged in money laundering by exporting gold bars to Iran and Dubai. “That is, trade in gold was meant to launder money obtained by illegal means,” the daily said.