The indictment broadens a case targeting Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab over sanctions evasion, which has fuelled tension between the United States and Turkey, reported Hurryiet Daily.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said he believed US authorities had “ulterior motives” in prosecuting Zarrab.
The new charges targeted former economy minister Zafer Çağlayan and former Halkbank general manager Süleyman Aslan and two others, according to the filing, dated on Sept. 6, from the US attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.
They were charged with “conspiring to use the US financial system to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of the Government of Iran and other Iranian entities, which were barred by United States sanctions.”
Zarrab was arrested in March 2016 and a deputy general manager of Halkbank was charged in March of this year in the same case.
Subsequent to the executive’s arrest, Halkbank said its operations and transactions fully comply with national and international regulations.