Nowadays, the judiciary is questioning the causes of unjust enrichment of the Koza Group, which was a small invitation-card printing house in Istanbul in the early 1990s and rapidly grew into a conglomerate having 23 companies. The group, which is known for its affiliation to the Gülenist Terrorist Organization, has an asset size worth tens of billions of dollars with its media network that includes TV channels and newspapers, and with mining companies that allegedly operate the most fertile gold mines in the world. This legal practice should have already been conducted in a democratic country. However, Koza Group, which flourished over the course of time and turned into a criminal monopoly, prevented this legal transaction by using its power in the bureaucracy. Now, media outlets belonging to this criminal monopoly present the questioning of unjust enrichment as if it were an operation against the media. This is not the case, and anywhere in the world this legal transaction would be considered as a front for a criminal structure in the eyes of the court and its accountability in the face of the legal system.

Democracy and welfare in the world is achieved after struggles against crises and fraudulent structures that operate like the moneymaking schemes of Italian swindler Charles Ponzi. United States history is fraught with striking examples, including the 2008 financial crisis, in this regard. Furthermore, the 1929 economic depression and the following period are very important.

When the Great Depression of 1929 broke out, the U.S. was being administrated by the 31st President, republican Herbert Hoover, who thought that the system would spontaneously get back on track in the face of the crisis. However, the system did not concern the financial system alone, but also engulfed real areas and intensified further, revealing Hoover's desperation. Thus, a good many incidents that happened during and after the Great Depression brought an end to the Hoover administration and later brought Franklin D. Roosevelt to power. Roosevelt's New Deal policy turned into a lifesaver both for the U.S. and all other countries affected by the crisis. The New Deal policy, which aimed for the reinvigoration of the economy and highlighted government expenditures in almost all respects, enabled the recovery and the reconstruction of the U.S. economy. Another aspect of the New Deal that is not widely known but constitutes its core is its systemic struggle with criminal economic structures that derailed from the system.

Roosevelt's Keynesian economic policies were applied as of 1936 thanks to new laws and newly established institutions. For instance, general planning laws were enacted to regulate financial and banking systems and concomitant regulatory institutions were established, in addition to supervisory laws and institutions that were founded to ensure competition, to regulate the labor market and to prevent unemployment. Here is a paradoxical situation: On the one hand, the state provided employment by regulating the economy and on the other hand it smoothed the way for open competition by struggling with monopolies. Therefore, it is not possible to describe Keynes' notes and Roosevelt's New Deal policies only as statist policies. These policies went down in history as multifaceted renewal policies that were developed to overcome the crisis. Contrary to popular opinion, the New Deal period purified the system from criminal organizations, money launderers and ill-gotten gain. In this regard, it was not a statist but a market-friendly period.

Ponzi's story is no secret to anyone. In 1920, Ponzi collected $15 million from investors promising them 100 percent profit. This money was equal to two per thousand of the U.S.'s national income at that time. Ponzi was paying early investors using the investments of later investors but he never included his own money in this chain. His system, known as the Ponzi scheme, survived for merely five months. When his system collapsed, there were two things that remained: thousands of victims and the term of the ‘Ponzi scheme' that had its place in economic terminology.

This week's probe that the Turkish judiciary has launched will unearth a criminal structure operating as a Ponzi scheme. With its banks and companies, this structure finances its own structure, i.e. terror, with the money that it collects with political purposes or perhaps with pressure. Just like Ponzi, however, it never includes the capital of organizational structure from where it emerged. However, unlike Ponzi, who promised high interests, this structure promises its followers to handle their business in the state where they dominate.

Turkey will continue to fight against structures that act with the Ponzi logic, launder money and transfer funds abroad through illegal methods. It is high time that Turkey initiated this fight and, just like the U.S., it needs to fight uncompromisingly to achieve an open economy and well-functioning market. This struggle will smooth the way for market actors and the economy.