company:halkbank

  • How to Launder $1 Billion of Iranian Oil - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-08/how-to-launder-1-billion-of-iranian-oil

    It wasn’t until he appeared in court on Nov. 29 that the full story surfaced. The FBI had removed him from jail to protect him from threats, keeping him under guard at an undisclosed location. By then, Zarrab had secretly pleaded guilty to all the charges against him and agreed to help the U.S. government. As part of his deal, prosecutors offered him and his family witness protection.

    Over more than a week on the witness stand, Zarrab spun a stunning tale of corruption and double-dealing that reached the highest levels of the Turkish government, all the way up to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The case has further soured Washington and Ankara’s already strained relationship, revealing how America’s longtime ally may have helped Iran undermine sanctions even as Turkey received millions of dollars in U.S. aid. Nine people have been charged, including Turkey’s former economy minister and past chief executive officer of Halkbank, a major Turkish bank owned by the government. Of them, only one—a senior Halkbank executive named Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Zarrab’s former co-defendant—is on trial. The others have all avoided U.S. arrest.

    In court, Zarrab laid out how he paid tens of millions of dollars in bribes to Turkish government officials and banking executives to win their assistance—and cover—for the money laundering operation. He dropped a bombshell on his second day of testimony, when he implicated Erdogan as part of the scheme, saying he was told Turkey’s president gave orders that two Turkish banks be included in the plot.

    #Turquie #Iran

  • Erdoğan ally, state bank official colluded to rig tender, says document
    http://todayszaman.com/news-342252-erdogan-ally-state-bank-official-colluded-to-rig-tender-say

    A plot of 5 million square meters, worth around $200 million, located in İstanbul’s Pendik district was first owned by Turkish machinery firm Meksan. This company bought the land with loans it had received from separate creditors, the largest of these being Halkbank. Meksan later failed to repay its debt to Halkbank, and the bank seized the Pendik plot to cover the non-performing loan.

    Meksan’s creditors, including Halkbank, held a number of auctions to sell the land and retrieve their receivables, but to no avail. In a negotiated tender with restricted parameters, the land was finally purchased by Güven Energy, a sister company of Eksim Holding.

    The Twitter account published the transcript on the website hirsizaoyyok.wordpress.com, alleging that Tivnikli and Alkan had arranged the tender for the land in Pendik. In the transcript, Alkan promises Tivnikli that the tender will be won by one of his subsidiaries. Tivnikli, a close friend of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is the main shareholder in Turkish company Eksim Holding, which is active in the energy, retail and construction sectors, and also has shares in a Turkish construction firm, Akabe İnşaat.

    #Istanbul
    #Corruption
    #urbanisation