Economics
Turkey’s Halkbank Could Suffer From Ex-Banker’s U.S. Conviction
- Lender implicated in alleged scheme to evade Iran sanctions
- Treasury could curb bank’s ability to transact in U.S. dollars
A Halkbank branch in Istanbul
Photographer: Kerem Uzel/Bloomberg
This article is for subscribers only.
The conviction of a Turkish banker in New York on Wednesday could spell trouble for Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, the state-run lender implicated in a money-laundering and sanctions-evasion scheme that formed the basis of the prosecution.
The guilty verdict rendered by the Manhattan jury applies only to Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who headed international banking at Halkbank. But federal prosecutors presented a stream of evidence that they said showed that Atilla and other Turkish bankers helped Iran launder billions of dollars to evade U.S. financial sanctions.