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Turkish Gold Trader Admits to Conspiring to Avoid US Sanctions against Iran

Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab is shown in this court room sketch with lawyer Marc Agnifilo as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, US, April 24, 2017. (Reuters)
Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab is shown in this court room sketch with lawyer Marc Agnifilo as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, US, April 24, 2017. (Reuters)
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Turkish Gold Trader Admits to Conspiring to Avoid US Sanctions against Iran

Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab is shown in this court room sketch with lawyer Marc Agnifilo as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, US, April 24, 2017. (Reuters)
Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab is shown in this court room sketch with lawyer Marc Agnifilo as he appears in Manhattan federal court in New York, US, April 24, 2017. (Reuters)

A Turkish-Iranian gold trader has admitted to conspiring to evade US sanctions against Iran, a US prosecutor said on Tuesday.

He said that Reza Zarrab pleaded guilty to conspiring to evade US sanctions against Iran and will testify against a Turkish bank official who is charged with arranging illegal transactions involving American banks.

Zarrab will describe a multibillion-dollar international money laundering scheme “from the inside,” Assistant US Attorney David Denton said during his opening statement in the New York federal court trial of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the deputy general manager of Turkey’s Halkbank.

Atilla’s lawyer, Victor Rocco, attacked Zarrab’s credibility in his opening statement, telling jurors that Zarrab was prepared to lie to avoid jail time.

US prosecutors have charged nine people in the case, though only Zarrab and Atilla are known to be in US custody. The other defendants include the former head of Halkbank, Suleyman Aslan, and the former economy minister of Turkey, Zafer Caglayan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has said the case was fabricated for political motives, adding to tensions between Ankara and Washington.

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French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
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French Intelligence Chief: No Certainty on Whereabouts of Iran’s Uranium Stocks

An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)
An Iranian national flag is fixed to the arm of a statue at the monument dedicated to the Palestinian struggle in Palestine Square in central Tehran on July 8, 2025, as an anti-Israeli billboard is displayed on the facade of a building depicting the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu with text in Persian and Hebrew reading "Netanyahu lost another war; you fell victim to Bibi's political games; Where will the next failure to stay in power occur?" (AFP)

France's intelligence chief said on Tuesday that all aspects of Iran's nuclear program have been pushed back several months after American and Israeli air strikes, but there is uncertainty over where its highly-enriched uranium stocks are.

"The Iranian nuclear program is the material, it is highly-enriched uranium, it is a capacity to convert this uranium from the gaseous phase to the solid phase. It is the manufacturing of the core and it is the delivery," Nicolas Lerner, who heads the DGSE intelligence service, told LCI television.

"Our assessment today is that each of these stages has been very seriously affected, very seriously damaged and that the nuclear program, as we knew it, has been extremely delayed, probably many months."

Lerner, who was speaking for the first time on national television, said a small part of Iran's highly-enriched uranium stockpile had been destroyed, but the rest remained in the hands of the authorities.

"Today we have indications (on where it is), but we cannot say with certainty as long as the IAEA does not restart its work. It's very important. We won't have the capacity to trace it (the stocks)," Lerner said.

Other intelligence assessments have also suggested that Iran retains a hidden stockpile of enriched uranium and the technical capacity to rebuild.

Lerner echoed those comments saying there was a possibility Iran could press ahead with a clandestine program with smaller enrichment capacities.

"That's why France is so attached to finding a diplomatic solution to this nuclear crisis," he said.