Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessman of Azerbaijani origin who lives in Turkey, is being brought to the hospital for a medical checkup prior to his detention on December 17, 2013. (Photo: Cihan)
Source: TODAYSZAMAN.COM, İSTANBUL 28 January 2014 /
According to initial reports from the İstanbul Prosecutor’s Office — which is looking into a corruption scandal that erupted on Dec. 17 — former Turkish members of Parliament and bureaucrats who hold diplomatic passports were used as couriers to transfer $20 billion from sanctions-hit Iran into Turkey, the Taraf daily reported on Tuesday.
The prosecutor’s findings show that not only ministers and security officials have been used in the transfer of the money, but also former deputies and bureaucrats, the daily claimed, adding that the money transfers started after UN sanctions were imposed and was led by Reza Zarrab, an Iranian businessman who has been arrested as part of an ongoing graft probe in Turkey.
According to the charges in the ongoing graft probe, a criminal organization allegedly headed by Zarrab is thought to have distributed a total of TL 137 million ($66 million) in bribes to some Cabinet ministers and their sons to cloak fictitious exports and money laundering in which the organization was allegedly engaged.
Zarrab is accused of being the ringleader in Turkey of a shady money-laundering and gold-smuggling ring established to dodge sanctions against Iran. Following his arrest in the graft probe, he was described as a charitable person by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The resignation of three ministers involved in the corruption case (former Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Interior Minister Muammer Güler and Environmental and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar) lent support to the allegations that government officials were involved in the scandal. EU Minister Egemen Bağış, who did not resign, was soon after removed in a Cabinet reshuffle.