(NEW YORK) — A major Turkish bank was criminally charged in an indictment Tuesday with participating in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade U.S. sanctions against Iran.
The charges against Halkbank, a state-owned bank, were announced years after a wealthy gold trader was arrested in Florida. Before pleading guilty and testifying against a co-defendant, the Turkish-Iranian businessman, Reza Zarrab, hired Rudy Giuliani to lobby the administration of President Donald Trump to drop the charges as part of a prisoner exchange.
