The attorney of a man charged with violating the US trade embargo against Iran said on Wednesday that the reason the defendant’s family moved several million dollars to the US from Iran was to shield it from his father’s mistress.
Mahmoud Reza Banki, a 33-year-old management consultant, born in Tehran, was arrested in January on charges that he broke laws designed to protect the US by setting up a cash-transfer network known as a hawala so money could be moved between Iran and the US.
“This case, as you’ll see, is really a case about a broken family,” Weiss told jurors at the start of Banki’s trial at the US District Court in Manhattan.
Assistant US Attorney Anirudh Bansal portrayed Banki as a conniving and deceitful man who enabled dozens of companies and people in countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and the Philippines, to move more than US$3 million into Iran.
By so doing, Banki violated the Iran Trade Embargo, which was initiated in 1995 and prohibits US citizens from supplying goods, services or technology to Iran and its government, the prosecutor told jurors.
Weiss, however, said the government had it all wrong. He said Banki never operated a cash-transfer network but rather moved money into his bank account, something the FBI, Internal Revenue Service and other agencies were aware of but never objected to.
Weiss said Banki had no idea that anyone was receiving money in Iran in return for deposits into his bank account because he didn’t really understand the complexities of the financial transfers that were occurring.
“This in many, many ways is a tragic case ... Mr Banki is an innocent man standing before you, accused of crimes he didn’t commit,” Weiss said.
Banki, who has been held without bail since his arrest, became a US citizen in 1996. He attended Purdue University and the University of California, Berkeley before obtaining a doctorate in chemical engineering from Princeton University.
“He loved this country and wanted to make this country his own,” Weiss said.
He then spoke of what he called “some pretty private family matters,” disclosing that the Banki family had been under enormous stress for years because “his dad was cheating on his mom.”
As Weiss spoke, Banki dropped his head in to his hands at the defense table and later began dabbing tears from his eyes with a tissue.
The family decided — against the father’s wishes — to begin sending money to Banki, who was to invest it so his mother would be financially secure in the future, the lawyer said.
Weiss said that the money transfers attracted the attention of the FBI in 2002, at which point Banki was interviewed three times about them. Over the next eight years, the transfers were explained to US Treasury Department employees, accountants, lawyers and even a Homeland Security agent.
“Nobody said it was against the law. Nobody told him to stop,” Weiss said.
If convicted, Banki could face up to 25 years in prison.
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