DOJ Moves to Dismiss Criminal Case Against Turkey's Halkbank Over Iran Sanctions
The Justice Department's request to drop charges it spent years building raises questions about the role of executive-branch diplomacy in federal prosecutions.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion asking a federal judge to dismiss the long-running criminal case against Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS, a Turkish state-owned financial institution, over alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran, according to a Bloomberg report dated June 11, 2026. The DOJ's motion, submitted to the presiding court, would end a prosecution that has been active for several years and centered on allegations that Halkbank facilitated billions of dollars in transactions that helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions. The specific court docket and filing date of the dismissal motion were reported by Bloomberg but the full text of the motion had not been publicly released as of publication time.
The Halkbank case has a lengthy procedural history. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York indicted the bank in 2019 on charges including bank fraud, money laundering, and sanctions evasion. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 2023 in Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States (No. 21-1176) that U.S. courts have jurisdiction to hear the prosecution, rejecting Halkbank's claim of sovereign immunity as a state-owned entity. The bank has denied wrongdoing throughout the proceedings.
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The DOJ's decision to seek dismissal follows a period of active U.S.-Turkey diplomatic engagement. Bloomberg's reporting noted the case had escalated into a diplomatic point of tension between the two NATO allies. The Justice Department has not issued a public statement explaining its legal rationale for the dismissal request, and the White House had not commented on the motion as of this publication. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 48(a), the government may dismiss an indictment with leave of court, but the rule requires court approval, meaning a judge must still act on the motion.
The case drew congressional attention during its earlier stages. In 2018, then-President Donald Trump publicly suggested he was working with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the matter, a statement that prompted scrutiny from members of both parties regarding potential executive interference in a pending prosecution. No congressional legislation specifically governing the Halkbank prosecution has been enacted, and no formal congressional investigation into the dismissal motion has been announced as of June 11, 2026, according to the congressional record.
What remains unknown is the specific legal justification the DOJ cited in its dismissal motion, including whether it invoked prosecutorial discretion, diplomatic considerations, or evidentiary grounds. The full text of the motion, once filed on the public court docket in the Southern District of New York, would provide that explanation. It is also unknown whether the presiding judge will grant the motion or hold a hearing before ruling. A court order on the motion, when issued, would be the definitive public record on how this prosecution concludes.