Iran Starts Litigation to Release $1,6 Billion Frozen Assets in Luxemburg.

Iran Starts Litigation to Release $1,6 Billion Frozen Assets in Luxemburg. (Fars).

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi announced that the country has started legal proceedings to release its $1.6bln frozen assets in Luxemburg.

"The money belongs to the Central Bank of Iran and was in Europe during the sanctions era and we couldn't access it due to the sanctions," Takht Ravanchi told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday.

Noting that Luxemburg blocked the Iranian account before the start of the nuclear talks in 2013, he said, "The money is in Europe and this is not a new development."

"The Central Bank's lawyers are in contact with the Luxemburg company (which has blocked Iran's money) and are making the necessary consultations to find access to the money," Takht Ravanchi said.

He explained that the money was frozen in Luxemburg after an approval in the US to freeze Tehran's assets and the extension of the same approval to other states as a result of the antagonistic moves made by certain anti-Iran elements.

In a relevant development last year, Tehran lodged a complaint with the International Court of Justice in the Hague against a court ruling by the US Supreme Court which authorized the transfer of $2 billion of Tehran's frozen assets to the families of the victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut.

"The US courts have issued illegal rulings and said that the properties should be provided to the Americans and the families of those people killed in Lebanon and it is not clear what the Americans did in Lebanon (at the time) and how the issue is related to Iran," Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in June.

"We shouldn’t remain silent vis a vis this event and we officially filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice yesterday and will pursue the case until attaining results," he added.

RELATED: 

High-ranking officials of Iran and Luxembourg have signed an agreement to support investments and improve banking ties.

Italian PM Renzi: ‘Italian judges do not answer to Erdogan’.

Italian PM Renzi: ‘Italian judges do not answer to Erdogan’. (Euractiv).

The reply of the Prime Minister Renzi: "The judges respond to the Italian Constitution and not to the president turkish. We call this" rule of law "system, and we are proud of."(Tweet below).

In questo Paese i giudici rispondono alle leggi e alla Costituzione italiana, non al presidente turco. Si chiama "stato di diritto" #Italia

— Matteo Renzi (@matteorenzi) August 2, 2016

Rome and Ankara bickered yesterday (2 August) over an Italian investigation into accusations that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan’s son Bilal laundered money.

In an interview with Rainews24 TV, Erdoğan stressed that his son Bilal could not return to Italy for studies due to a money-laundering probe by prosecutors in the northern city of Bologna, where Bilal had been studying. Erdoğan warned that this could affect bilateral relations.

“If my son came back to Italy at this moment, he could be arrested”, Turkish President stressed, adding that “this could even cause problems for our relationship with Italy”.

Bilal, 35, went to Italy in 2015 to finish a doctorate. According to Reuters, it was not clear when he left, but a legal source said he had been back in Turkey for some time. He denies wrongdoing.

Erdogan also urged Italian judges to focus on the mafia and not his son, triggering the strong reaction of the Italian premier.

The money laundering investigation followed accusations by Murat Hakan Uzan, an exiled member of one of Turkey’s richest families and an opponent of the president, a legal source said.

Italian press reported prosecutors were looking into sums of money allegedly brought to Italy from Turkey. In July, a Bologna court allowed them to extend their investigation by six months.

Bilal’s lawyer Giovanni Trombini said his client declared that “all his economic and financial activity is totally transparent and legal, and the accusations are completely unfounded”.


Bilal, one of the Turkish president’s four children, has shipping and maritime assets and controls several oil tankers through his company and partnerships in other firms.

The vice-president of the Supreme Judicial Council John Legnini :" the attack on Italian judiciary by the Turkish President  is serious and unacceptable. Judges and Italians fight daily against the Mafia with investigations and trials, risking their lives and achieving extraordinary results. Rather it is Turkey which must give the international community a guarantee of compliance with the principles of autonomy and independence of the judiciary, indispensable for our country and for any democratic country, giving answers on the extremely serious dismissals and arrests of thousands of judges that the plenum of the CSM has firmly and promptly condemned, along with the network of European higher (ENCJ) and the recommendations of the Supreme Courts of the EU presidents. " Hmmm.......Great way to counter his refugee 'blackmail'.

Within hours, #Turkey pres. #Erdogan gets a gag order on reports of money laundering probe against his son in #Italy pic.twitter.com/2m9TiWR7jb

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) August 2, 2016

Islamic State makes nearly $20M a month in stock market investment scheme.

Filthy rich? Islamic State makes nearly $20M a month in stock market investment scheme.(Albawaba).

Islamic State [Daesh] militants are earning up to £14 million (approximately $20 million) a month by funneling cash looted from Iraqi banks into legitimate currency speculation.

The group seized hundreds of millions of dollars when it ransacked Mosul banks in June 2014, giving it the means to re-inject the cash back into unsuspecting foreign markets.

Yesterday a Foreign Affairs sub-committee heard that this money is routed into financial markets in Jordan, where it is used to play the stock market and then rewired back to ISIS operatives in Iraq.

The move into such a sophisticated method of money laundering provides another platform for the group's funding, along with its well-established oil production, extortion, and harsh local taxes.

The hearing heard ISIS was funding its stock market gambles with money taken from Iraqi civil servants' pension payments as well as looted cash, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Using the alternative acronym ISIL to refer to the group, MP John Baron, the sub-committee's chair, said: 'The cash that ISIL has looted, along with siphoned off pension payments, is routed into Jordanian banks and brought back into the system via Baghdad.

'That allows the system to be exploited by ISIL, in that they take a turn on the foreign currency actions and siphon that cash back.'

The siphoned cash is returned to ISIS operatives by the 'hawala' system of money transfer, an informal transfer system common in the Middle East, the paper reported.

It requires brokers, who know and trust one another, to act and the depositing and withdrawal points for individuals willing to transfer cash to one another.

As the money is not actually shifted between the brokers, they settle the debt incurred by the individuals' withdrawal with one another at a later point.

With an estimated £1.3billion ($1.84 billion) fortune, the group can afford not only to pay foreign fighters who join its cause in the Middle East, but easily expand beyond its borders to launch attacks in the West.

Though figures of its wealth vary widely, one report estimated it was selling £1million ($1.41 million) per day in crude oil and kidnappings were worth £30million ($42.2 million) per annum.

As well as these income streams, it was enforcing taxes of 20 per cent across a population of 10 million, and controlled 40 per cent of Iraq's wheat production. Read the full story here.

French Arrest four Hezbollah operatives in Paris on U.S. Arrest warrants.

French Arrest four Hezbollah operatives in Paris on U.S. Arrest warrants. (albawabaeg).

French authorities reportedly detained four Lebanese based on an arrest warrant issued by the United States, local daily As-Safir said Friday.

The newspaper identified the four men as Mohamad Noureddine, Mazen Al-Atat, Ali Zbib and Osama Fahs.

The report said that the French authorities did not inform Lebanese authorities of the arrest until Fahs' relatives in Paris reported him missing to French police. This prompted the latter to contact the Lebanese embassy in the capital to inform it of the detention of four of its nationals.

The daily added that preliminary information disclosed that French authorities had no charges against any of the four men, but it briefed Lebanese authorities on a U.S. arrest warrant issued against them.

Noureddine was targeted in sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department Thursday, along with another Lebanese Hamdi Zaher, for his alleged activity in money laundering at the behest of Hezbollah.

The department targeted Noureddine and Zaher for providing financial services to Hezbollah, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

Treasury claims Noureddine has laundered money through his company called Trade Point International S.A.R.L. He is accused of using his network across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East to provide money laundering, bulk cash shipment, black market currency exchange and other financial services to clients, including members of Hezbollah.

The sanctions freeze any assets the two men have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibit U.S. citizens from doing business with them.

The U.S. has sanctioned more than 100 individuals and entities associated with Hezbollah.

Erdogan "launders millions by building mosques in Kosovo": Kosovo press alleges.

“Thank God Almighty,” said Mr. Erdogan in 1994, when he was the mayor of Istanbul. “I am a servant of Shariah.” 

Erdogan "launders millions by building mosques in Kosovo": Kosovo press alleges.(b92.net).

Millions of euros are flowing from Turkey to Kosovo "through illegal routes, bypassing banks," according to the Pristina-based Albanian language daily Zeri.

Moreover, this media outlet said that Recep Erdogan's authorities are using this to "launder money."

The paper says millions are arriving in Kosovo "but not as investments or to help the economy, or fund projects, but to rebuild religious structures."

"Most of the investments undoubtedly expose Erdogan's major money laundering via Kosovo," writes Zeri in an article it said is being published "after a two-month investigation."

Dozens of new mosques in Kosovo "as well as the renovation of all the existing ones built during the Ottoman Empire" are financed through one big donor, the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA), states the paper, and points out that the agency was established by the Turkish government, and is directly managed "by the embassy in Turkey."

"TIKA keeps its finances secret in most cases, since there is no official data on how much money is being invested. There is suspiction that the money is being brought in illegally and not via bank accounts," said the article, and added that a list the daily's reporters had seen at the Central Bank of Kosovo showed TIKA has invested less than three million euros in Kosovo from 2009 until 2014 - out of that 1.2 million in the Sinan Pasha mosque in Prizren alone.

From 2011 until now TIKA and several other Turkish investors also renovated about 30 mosques and religious structures "from the Ottoman period."

The paper adds that TIKA is exempt from paying taxes in Kosovo and employs only workers from Turkey.

Turkey was among the first countries to recognize Kosovo, and Erdogan has been on several occasions reported as openly "lobbying for Kosovo."

Also, the Turkish president caused a stir two years ago in Prizren when he said that "Kosovo is his second country."

The then Turkish prime minister said that the cultures of Turkey and Kosovo may be different, but that their citizens belong to the same country.

This was followed by a harsh reaction from the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the public in Serbia, but Erdogan's cabinet announced that there will be no apology and that his statement was "misinterpreted." It was announced later that the the statement was incorrectly translated and that Erdogan did not say that "Kosovo is Turkey, and Turkey is Kosovo." Hmmmm....... 2,72 Billion Dollars used by Erdoğan from 'discretionary funds’