Iranian-Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab has been arrested on U.S. charges on allegations that he and others engaged in hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions for the Iranian government or other entities as part of a scheme to evade sanctions against the country.
Zarrab, 33, was arrested in Miami on Saturday, March 19, on charges contained in a federal indictment in Manhattan against him and two Iranian citizens, Kamelia Jamshidy, 29, and Hossein Najafzadeh, 65, U.S. prosecutors said on Monday. Zarrab was presented to court early on Monday, while Jamshidy and Najafzadeh remain at large.
Zarrab, Jamshidy and Najafzadeh are being accused of engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars-worth of transactions on behalf of the government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by U.S. sanctions, laundering the proceeds of those illegal transactions and defrauding several financial institutions by concealing the true nature of these transactions.
Several companies based in Turkey are also being accused in the indictment of facilitating the transactions.
