Iranians breaking the law

Hassan Namazi was sentenced

 to 144 months in prison

Former political fundraiser HASSAN NEMAZEE was sentenced in Manhattan federal court to 144 months in prison for defrauding Bank of America, N.A. ("BofA"), Citibank, N.A. ("Citibank"), and HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC"), out of $292 million in loan proceeds. In addition to the prison term, United States District Judge SIDNEY H. STEIN, who imposed the sentence, ordered NEMAZEE to pay restitution of more than $292 million to the defrauded banks and to serve three years of supervised release.

Mahmoud Reza Banki was sentenced

 to two and a half years in prison

An Iranian immigrant who had earned a Ph.D. from Princeton and aspired to a career in biotechnology was sentenced to two and a half years in prison for violating the Iran trade embargo by using an informal money-transfer system known as hawala to move millions of dollars between the United States and Iran.

Ezri Namvari indicted

Los Angeles real estate mogul Ezri Namvar, an Iranian immigrant who amassed and then lost billions of dollars of commercial real estate holdings, has been indicted on wire fraud charges, his attorney said.

Namvar, former owner of such high-profile properties as the Marriott hotel in downtown Los Angeles and the Cal Neva resort in Lake Tahoe, was accused of five counts of wire fraud related to a company, Namco Financial Exchange Corp., that sheltered proceeds from real estate transactions, said defense attorney Marc Harris.

Thom Mrozek, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said a grand jury indicted Namvar on Tuesday.

Namvar's exchange company held clients' money obtained from real estate sales until they needed it for new acquisitions. This helped shelter the clients from income tax.