Turkish businessman Zarrab arrested in US on fraud charges

Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-born Turkish businessman who was acquitted in a vast Turkish graft probe in 2014 after 70 days in jail, has been arrested in Florida on charges of conspiracy to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars in financial transactions for the Iranian government or other entities to evade U.S. sanctions. 
U.S. prosecutor Preet Bharara, who has a reputation for prosecuting 100 Wall Street executives in 2014 before a historic settlement, also charged Zarrab's employee, Kamelia Jamshidy, and Hossein Najafzadeh, a senior officer at a unit of Bank Mellat in Iran. 

The indictment was filed in federal court in Manhattan after Zarrab was arrested on March 19 in Miami and appeared in federal court there on March 21, when a federal magistrate judge ordered him detained.

Jamshidy and Najafzadeh, who are both Iranian nationals, remained at large. 

Bharara, Assistant Attorney General John Carlin and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Diego Rodriguez said in the indictment the trio made hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions fraudulently on behalf of the Iranian government, seeking 75 years jail time for each. 

The arrest came two months after Iran emerged from years of economic isolation when world powers led by the United States and the European Union lifted crippling sanctions against the country in return for curbs on Tehran's nuclear ambitions. 

Bharara said after the read-out of the indictment that the suspects "violated the sanctions on Iran and Iranian companies, laundering money worldwide."

Rodriguez said the accusations should send a message to those who want to hide their "real partners." 

The indictment cited Bank Mellat, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), the...