Russia, Turkey used nuclear plant to avoid U.S. sanctions, WSJ says

A few months after invading Ukraine, Russia transferred more than $5B in payments to Turkey, which was being used to build the country’s first nuclear-power plant, Joe Wallae, Costas Paris, and Jared Malsin of The Wall Street Journal reports. The transfers caught the attention of the Justic Department investigators tasked with policing Wall Street, since JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Citigroup (C) handled the flow of money. Investigators found Russia and Turkey used the nuclear project in 2022 to avoid U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia’s central bank, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. While JPMorgan and Citigroup are not targets of the investigation, $2B of the Russian funds are trapped at JPMorgan after the U.S. government halted the bank transfers.