The biggest Iranian oil sanctions evader, REZA ZARRAB a/k/a Risa Sarraf, was sentenced to time Served in his SDNY case, which amounts to 22 months, which he served before being released in a highly unusual arrangement that saw him free in the US for 8 1/2 years. The matter was conducted quietly in Manhattan; no press announcement from the US Attorney's Office appears in its website, and media reports favorably described him as a "Key Witness," leaving it to the reader to judge why his central role in aiding and abetting Iran to sell its sanctioned oil for many billions of dollars on the world market.
After he rendered Substantial Assistance against Turkish targets for corruption and money laundering, Zarrab was freed from pretrial confinement in an extraordinary manner, suggesting that it was not U.S. law enforcement that he assisted, but our intelligence community, due to the circumstances of his release, and his subsequent operation of a horse farm and training center in the Miami area, seemingly free from traditional supervision. His 57-page Sentencing Memorandum was heavily redacted, indicating the sensitivity of his cooperation against official Turkish corruption.
Given his high level of cooperation, we understand why the United States Government deemed that he should not spend the rest of his life in a Federal Prison, but the twenty-two months he spent in custody does not seem to be a sufficient deterrence by any yardstick that is used to convince any other potential international sanctions evaders to engage in such damaging conduct. We justice served and did his testimony make a difference? HALKBANK got a pass, for purely political reasons, by the current administration, and his other cooperation did not yield any significant convictions. no wonder the SDNY Press Office did not boast about the case. Did Zarrab cheat justice?
FROM THE GOVERNMENT'S SENTENCING MEMORANDUM:
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