 Antalya Airport |
A revelation by a regime insider has shed light on how Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has amassed billions of dollars in family wealth during his two-decade rule, which has been marked by rampant corruption in his administration.
Ali Yeşildağ, a long-time member of a gang that helped run corrupt schemes on behalf of Erdogan, revealed in a video posted on YouTube on May 5, 2023 that Erdogan, then prime minister, pocketed $1 billion in a kickback scheme from an airport management tender back in 2007.
The money was given to Erdogan by Turkish businessman İbrahim Çeçen, who fraudulently won the government tender for the operating rights of Antalya Airport for his company İçtaş, part of İbrahim Çeçen Yatırım Holding (IC Holding), which participated in the tender with its German partner Fraport AG.
Continue reading the full article>
Abdullah Bozkurt, a Middle East Forum Writing Fellow, is a Swedish-based investigative journalist and analyst who runs the Nordic Research and Monitoring Network and is chairman of the Stockholm Center for Freedom.
