Against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis and seeing an opportunity in the making, Russian President Vladimir Putin quickly used the banking scandal to try to drive a wedge between the U.S. and France by claiming that the hefty fine was a maneuver by the U.S. to blackmail France into cancelling plans to sell two warships to Russia. The Obama administration has denied any linkage between the financial penalty and other international matters.
The uncovering of the BNP Paribas scheme was inadvertently triggered by the actions of Stephen Flatow of New Jersey, who had filed a lawsuit over Iran’s alleged financing of a 1995 terrorist bus bombing in Gaza that killed his 20-year-old daughter, Alisa. Stumbling upon the lawsuit in 2006, the Manhattan district attorney’s office discovered, in the court filings, a claim that a Fifth Avenue office building was in fact a front for the Iranian government. When criminal charges were filed against two banks involved in Iranian transactions, a whistleblower came forward to implicate BNP Paribas, which led to further unraveling of its activities.
Article Appeared @http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-the-world/french-bank-agrees-to-pay-89-billion-dollar-penalty-for-helping-iran-and-other-governments-sanctioned-by-us-140704?news=853591