The Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) has issued a report accusing Istanbul’s jailed Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu of seven counts of laundering ill-gotten assets.
Imamoğlu, along with Tuncay Yılmaz, general manager of Imamoğlu Construction Company, is suspected of laundering 25 immovable properties, TL 63.5 million ($1.6 million) and 637,106 euros ($731,078), MASAK said in the report released Wednesday.
Imamoğlu, along with 12 other suspects, was arrested in March as part of a wider corruption investigation involving Istanbul municipality officials, as well as employees of his family company.
The seven counts of laundering range from illicit real estate purchasing contracts and unlawful sale of immovable properties to covering up money transactions by pushing sums through various personal and corporate bank accounts and cash submissions by individuals with red-flagged financial profiles.
MASAK said the investigation was expanded to include Yılmaz, Imamoğlu Construction Company, SSB Real Estate Industry and Trade Inc. and Güllüce Agriculture Industry and Trade Inc.
The board detected TL 35.2 million in the bank accounts of Imamoğlu Construction Company, all of which was submitted in cash and whose source could not be determined. The company paid TL 7 million for three apartments sold in a construction project and for a villa whose title deed was not transferred to the alleged buyer.
The board also found irregularities in the transfer of Güllüce Agriculture shares owned by suspect Ali Nuhoğlu, who was released after pleading effective repentance, to Imamoğlu’s construction company.
It said the Güllüce company and the two villas were sold to Imamoğlu’s company for a sham price in an unlawful contract, which included “perfunctory articles to conceal the true price.”
According to the board, Imamoğlu and the companies involved supplied financing with high sums whose origins could not be traced and registered in the current accounts differently from the normal process. They also made a purchase strongly suspected to be prearranged look like a commercial purchase and even created an invoice that was recorded in the company’s legal books.
All of these were preceded by accounting tricks in commercial records, the report said.
The report also included testimonies from some suspects in the case.
Furkan Hamzaoğlu, a construction company owner and one of the suspects in the case, alleged he gave away shops and apartments to Adem Soytekin, another businessperson arrested alongside Imamoğlu, to obtain a construction license in Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district. He claimed four of these apartments were transferred to the ownership of Imamoğlu’s father, Hasan Imamoğlu.
