How Iran Used an International Playboy to Launder Oil Money

The Republic of Iran had a problem throughout the 2010s: How to sell oil to countries like China that didn’t want to flout U.S. and EU sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear program.

It was a problem solved in part by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a state bank, and a money launderer, Reza Zarrab.

Though he worked in the shadows, Zarrab’s extravagant lifestyle made him famous in Istanbul, where he was known as “The Turkish Gatsby.” His 2016 arrest in Miami established him as the star witness in what became the long-running prosecution of Halkbank, Turkey’s leading state-owned bank.

On May 3, Halkbank – and by extension the Erdoğan regime – goes on trial in New York City, accused of helping Iran evade sanctions.

For more than a year, a group of journalists led by OCCRP analyzed nearly 750,000 documents and transaction records used in Zarrab’s U.S. prosecution, as well as Suspicious Activity Reports that became part of the 2020 FinCEN Files investigation. Read on to learn what we found.