From: RegTech Analyst
Ali Sadr Hasheminejad, owner of Maltese Pilatus Bank, has been found guilty of crimes breaching US sanctions against Iran and for money laundering offences.
While he has been found guilty on five counts, the jury has yet to deliver a sentence, Malta Today reported.
The banker is expected to appeal the conviction, which found him guilty of conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to violate the IEEPA sanctions against Iran, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and money laundering. He was found not guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Hasheminejad had accused of using the US financial system to funnel over $115m in payments from a construction project in Venezuela that his father’s construction company was involved in, back to his family’s companies in Europe.
“As the jury found, Ali Sadr Hasheminejad created a network of front companies and bank accounts to mask Iranian business dealings in Venezuela and evade US sanctions,” said Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. “For years, Sadr used front companies in Switzerland, Turkey, and St. Kitts & Nevis to conceal the fact that $115m in payments were really for his family business and relatives in Iran. Sadr’s conviction shows that US economic sanctions against Iran are for real and violators will be exposed and prosecuted.”
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