Turkish lender Halkbank initially refused to help a prominent gold trader skirt U.S. sanctions against Iran, but with the help of a high-ranking minister and millions of dollars of bribes, the lender changed course, a New York federal jury heard in testimony Wednesday. The testimony was from the gold trader himself, Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-born Turkish citizen charged last year with funneling hundreds of millions of dollars through U.S. banks on behalf of blacklisted Iranian entities as part of a 6-year scheme involving money exchangers and front companies in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. But Zarrab ultimately pleaded...
An ongoing corruption and graft scandal involving a state-controlled Turkish bank will likely complicate Turkey's standing with the global anti-money laundering community, say analysts.
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