TEHRAN: The Iranian businessman who was allegedly the partner of Reza Zarrab, the leading suspect in Turkey’s biggest graft scandal, has confessed to an Iranian court he transported 1.5 tons of gold from Ghana via İstanbul, for which Zarrab also faced charges of smuggling.
According to a report in the Hürriyet daily, Babek Zanjani, the Iranian businessman facing a death sentence for embezzling $2.8 billion from Iran’s state-owned petroleum company, claimed in a hearing on Monday the gold transported by plane to Dubai via İstanbul turned out to be fake.
A cargo plane rented by Zanjani took off from Ghana on Jan. 1, 2013 and landed at İstanbul Atatürk Airport the same day. According to official documents about the cargo of the plane, it was carrying 1,500 kilograms of “mineral samples.”
But customs officers inspected the plane and found 1,208 kilograms of gold, along with 250 kilograms of unidentified minerals.
The plane was grounded for around two weeks at İstanbul Atatürk Airport after being sealed for improper documentation and suspicions of smuggling. It later turned out some 292 kilograms of gold bars in the cargo plane went missing before the plane left for Dubai.
According to the daily’s article, which is based on reports by Iranian media outlets, Zanjani was asked by the court whether he had transferred 445 million euros to the Safir gold company owned by Zarrab and paid him 12 million euros in commission.
In response, Zanjani reportedly said: “The Iranian Central Bank’s money was in accounts in the Parsian and Sarmayeh banks. These two banks wanted to transfer money to Turkey’s Halkbank. So both these two banks as well as Halkbank received a commission [over the money order]. Actually Zarrab did not receive any commission, the 12 million euros was the commission taken by the banks.”
A courier who used to work for Zarrab Adem Karahan in July this year provided details on how Zarrab facilitated the gold trade he was conducting to circumvent the international sanctions against Iran and how Turkish government officials helped him.
In an interview with the Cumhuriyet daily, Karahan, who also previously spoke to a customs inspector, said Zarrab sold 200 tons of gold in 2012 and 2013. Stating that it was just money that flew abroad until 2012, Karahan said Zarrab’s company sold gold worth TL 18 billion just in a year.
“Four percent of that money went to politicians and four percent went to Zarrab. But we do not know who the actual owner of the money is. Zarrab is also earning money by transferring someone’s money,” he said.
Stating that two groups each consisting of 22 couriers conducted the gold transfers, Karahan said the two groups facilitated a total of a ton of gold every day at different hours of the day. When asked whether they had any difficulty at the customs, Karahan said the customs officials were all in the know about what was going on.
He added: “They were welcoming us at the entrance of the airport. We used to show them the invoices and they would impress new seals on the gold boxes after conducting the necessary checks. They were not creating problem as they were also receiving their bribes. Zarrab was personally paying them. I personally witnessed this.”
Zarrab was accused as part of an investigation of managing a network used to launder at least 87 billion euros to circumvent international sanctions against Iran. In addition, he allegedly bribed ministers, their sons and public officials to keep his network working. According to prosecutors’ findings, Zarrab distributed TL 139 million in bribes.
Zanjani reportedly also said in court that the gold was discovered to be fake after it arrived in Dubai. “The person M., who appears to be the owner of the cargo, went with our men to get the cargo [in Dubai]. They then noticed the so-called gold bars were covered in acrylic.”
The members of the Turkish government who were allegedly involved in corruption were Economy Minister Zafer Çağlayan, Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Environment and Urban Planning Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar and EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış. The ministers resigned from their posts on Dec. 25, 2013.
The prosecutor of the corruption investigation said in an interview at the beginning of this year all evidence indicated in the investigation that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was the person behind Zarrab’s shady dealings.
According to a story published by the T24 news portal in September last year, 292 kilograms of the gold loaded on the plane were somehow smuggled into Turkey.
