Turkey & Iran "Gold for Gas" Scheme to Evade Energy Sanctions

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Turkey involved in corruption?  Iran evading sanctions?  Unthinkable.  Nonsense.  Nothing to see here, move along.

Massive Leak Confirms Turkey's "Gold-For-Gas" Scheme To Evade US Sanctions On Iran

... Included in the voluminous Formations House documents is a register of shareholders in an offshore company called Naftiran Intertrade Company Ltd, or NICO. This list of shareholders was attached to an email from December 2014, declaring the state-owned National Iranian Oil Company as the overarching shareholder and having complete control over NICO.

Also attached was a register of NICO directors listing five Iranian nationals.

NICO, the gasoline import arm of the state oil company, came to renewed international attention in March 2016 after the arrest at Miami International Airport of Reza Zarrab.

He flew to Florida to visit Disney World and on that trip was charged with conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions through an elaborate gold-for-gas scheme between Turkey and Iran, and using global banks to process transactions on behalf of Iran.

Prosecutors contend that Zarrab and a co-defendant, Mehmet Hakan Atila, who was a director at Turkey’s Halkbank, schemed to help Iran skirt U.S. sanctions by trading Turkish gold for oil and natural gas. Using companies across the globe, they facilitated $20 billion worth of transactions.

“High-ranking government officials in Iran and Turkey participated in and protected this scheme,” the Justice Department in Oct. 15, 2019. statement announcing charges against Halkbank, which incriminated Zarrab.

“Some officials received bribes worth tens of millions of dollars paid from the proceeds of the scheme ... and to help shield the scheme from the scrutiny of U.S. regulators.”

Shortly after his arrest, Zarrab, who is married to a Turkish pop star and has citizenship in Iran as well as Turkey, implicated Turkish President Recep Erdogan as having approved the operation.  ...

 

[canadas canadas + 136]

Turkey seems to be hypocritical in that it has supported the Syrian opposition against Assad from the very beginning.  However, it has also been busy supporting both Russia and Iran in many different ways even though both Russia and Iran are Assad's best allies in Syria. If Turkey does need gas, it should buy it from its ally Qatar who has a lot of it instead of from Iran. Wasn't a gas pipeline through Syria what divided many?  Also, hasn't Iran been suffering from gasoline refinery shortages so that exporting gasoline seems to confusing?

Edited December 6, 2019 by canadas canadas

[NickW + 2,714]

27 minutes ago, canadas canadas said:

Turkey seems to be hypocritical in that it has supported the Syrian opposition against Assad from the very beginning.  However, it has also been busy supporting both Russia and Iran in many different ways even though both Russia and Iran are Assad's best allies in Syria. If Turkey does need gas, it should buy it from its ally Qatar who has a lot of it instead of from Iran. Wasn't a gas pipeline through Syria what divided many?  Also, hasn't Iran been suffering from gasoline refinery shortages so that exporting gasoline seems to confusing?

I think this is crude oil and natural gas rather than refined petroleum.

Turkey will play whatever game it wants where it has an advantage. Just an extension of 'Balkan' politics.

Piped natural gas from Iran is nice and cheap compared to LNG so that deal suits Turkey very nicely. Meanwhile in Iran that gold won't put any bread on ordinary peoples tables that is for sure.

As for oil fairly straight forward to ship in moderate quantities of oil by rail.

 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

Typical of anything.  Think last time I mentioned the barrels not being offline I mentioned blood diamonds, drugs, illegal mining, black market ect as my reasoning