November 18, 2016
The older brother of Iranian-Turk gold trader Reza Zarrab has now been indicted in the US for sanctions violations and a new charge has been added to the list Reza Zarrab faces.
The charges against the two brothers accuse both men of conspiring to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars in transactions on behalf of Iran’s effort to evade US sanctions.
Mohammad Zarrab, 38, like his brother Reza a dual citizen of Turkey and Iran, was charged in an indictment filed Monday in Manhattan federal court
The new indictment added new charges that Reza Zarrab, 33, participated in transactions to benefit Iran-based Mahan Air, which the US government has sanctioned for providing services to Iran’s Qods Force as well as Hezbollah.
The indictment said Mohammad Zarrab owned a network of companies including Turkey-based money services company Flash Doviz Exchange. He remains at large and resides in Turkey, prosecutors said, so there is no immediate prospect of a trial.
Prosecutors said the Zarrabs and two others, an Iranian man and a woman living in Tehran, engaged in hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions on behalf of Iran’s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015.
Reza has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial beginning January 23, 2017.
