Tom Stocks

On the day of his arrest in a massive money-laundering scheme that still sours relations between the United States and Turkey, Reza Zarrab was consumed by his true passion: the sea.

A new investigation by OCCRP and Courthouse News Service shows that Russia was central to Zarrab’s money network even before he began working for Iran. The lucrative business is evident in thousands of bank transfer records obtained by OCCRP and has been described in interviews by a Zarrab insider who says he smuggled millions of dollars to Russia.