Who's the recipient of the Zarrab 'message?'

The U.S. Department of Justice announced on March 21 that Iranian origin Turkish businessman Reza Zarrab had been arrested on charges of "engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of transactions on behalf of the government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by U.S. sanctions, laundering the proceeds of those illegal transactions and defrauding several financial institutions by concealing the true nature of these transactions."

According to a written statement, 75 years in jail will be sought for the dual national businessman, together with two other Iran nationals, Camelia Jamshidy and Hossein Najafzadeh.

The probe was carried out by U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, who is renown with his successful cases regarding the financial wrongdoings on Wall Street; the Bank of America had to pay $1 billion in compensation as a result of a probe by Bharara. Late on March 21, Bharara wrote on his Twitter account: "Reza Zarrab to soon face American justice in a Manhattan courtroom."

Zarrab's name became widely known to Turkish and international public opinion when he was arrested by an Istanbul court as part of a graft probe opened on Dec. 17, 2013, which involved four former ministers of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Parti) - namely Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Industry Minister Zafer Ça?layan, Urbanization Affairs Minister Erdo?an Bayraktar and European Union Affairs Minister Egemen Ba???. President Tayyip Erdo?an, then the prime minister, had left those names out of the cabinet in a move on Dec. 25, 2013, but as another probe was opened on that day, this time alleging his family members through alleged telephone tapings, he denounced the probes as a coup attempt by his former ally, Islamist ideologue...