{"id":254222,"date":"2025-07-10T21:04:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T19:04:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/?p=254222"},"modified":"2025-07-14T21:08:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T19:08:52","slug":"turkish-newspaper-money-laundering-investigation-arrest-warrants-issued-for-85-people-including-individuals-from-libya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/turkish-newspaper-money-laundering-investigation-arrest-warrants-issued-for-85-people-including-individuals-from-libya\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Newspaper: Money Laundering Investigation \u2014 Arrest Warrants Issued for 85 People, Including Individuals from Libya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Turkish newspaper <em>PaTurkey<\/em> reported on Thursday that Turkish authorities have launched a <strong>comprehensive investigation into money laundering<\/strong> involving suspicious <strong>point-of-sale transactions worth over 47.5 billion Turkish lira<\/strong>, and have <strong>issued arrest warrants for 85 individuals<\/strong>, including <strong>employees from DenizBank, \u015eekerBank<\/strong>, and <strong>the fintech company Ozan Elektronik<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a statement from the <strong>Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office<\/strong>, the investigation targets <strong>individuals and legal entities<\/strong> suspected of committing a <strong>wide range of financial crimes<\/strong>, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Establishing a criminal organization<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Usury<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Violating laws related to credit cards and payment services<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Laundering criminal proceeds<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The newspaper noted that <strong>93% of the activity involved repeated same-day transactions<\/strong> using <strong>multiple cards<\/strong> for <strong>identical amounts<\/strong>, often conducted at <strong>night<\/strong> \u2014 raising suspicions due to inconsistencies with the companies\u2019 declared business data and appearing <strong>highly coordinated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities reportedly conducted <strong>simultaneous raids in six provinces<\/strong>, arresting <strong>16 employees<\/strong> from DenizBank, \u015eekerBank, and Ozan Elektronik. They seized <strong>luxury watches, gold jewelry, valuable assets, 47 vehicles, 84 properties<\/strong>, and <strong>shares in 10 companies<\/strong>, believed to be tied to <strong>illicit proceeds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Investigators uncovered the <strong>systematic misuse of point-of-sale devices<\/strong>, which enabled the <strong>generation of substantial illicit commission revenues<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Turkey\u2019s <strong>Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK)<\/strong>, a significant portion of the proceeds was later laundered through various channels by the suspects and affiliated companies. Most of the <strong>POS devices involved<\/strong> have now been reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CHP Deputy Chair \u00d6zg\u00fcr Karabat publicly criticized the investigation<\/strong>, accusing authorities of <strong>limiting its scope and shielding high-ranking banking officials<\/strong>. He claimed the <strong>actual volume of transactions far exceeds<\/strong> the official figure of 47.5 billion TL, possibly <strong>surpassing $120 billion<\/strong>, and asserted that the scheme <strong>began in 2019<\/strong>, not 2022 as officially stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">\u201cThe U.S. Is Using the Scheme as Diplomatic Leverage\u201d<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The paper also revealed that the <strong>money laundering network operated primarily through Libya and Iraq<\/strong>, and that the <strong>United States was fully aware of the transactions<\/strong> \u2014 potentially using this information as <strong>diplomatic leverage<\/strong> against Ankara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What\u2019s most concerning, according to the paper, is that <strong>Washington has access to all related data<\/strong> and could <strong>easily use this scandal as a bargaining chip<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Turkish newspaper PaTurkey reported on Thursday that Turkish authorities have launched a comprehensive investigation into money laundering involving suspicious point-of-sale transactions worth over 47.5 billion Turkish lira, and have issued arrest warrants for 85 individuals, including employees from DenizBank, \u015eekerBank, and the fintech company Ozan Elektronik. According to a statement from the Istanbul Chief [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":254223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[124],"tags":[613,985,719],"class_list":["post-254222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-libya","tag-money-laundering","tag-turkey"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254225,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254222\/revisions\/254225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sada.ly\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}