Ertan Yıldız, a figure close to Istanbul’s former Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, decided to collaborate with authorities and alleged that Imamoğlu ran a ring of corruption. Yıldız’s confessions may help the incarceration of Imamoğlu, who was arrested last March along with dozens of figures from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) and businesspeople. Prosecutors accuse Imamoğlu and others of profiting from rigged tenders and bribery in exchange for permits the municipality issued to businesses in Türkiye’s most populated city.
Yıldız served as head of the IBB department in charge of subsidiaries and was an adviser to Imamoğlu before he was arrested. A report by the Sabah newspaper says Yıldız invoked a law offering leniency in return for testimonies and evidence that may implicate others in the case. Yıldız worked in various capacities with Imamoğlu since the latter’s tenure as mayor of Istanbul’s Beylikdüzü district, after first meeting him in 2013 in that district.
He told prosecutors that under Imamoğlu’s tenure, most public tenders launched by IBB were awarded to firms based in Beylikdüzü or related to that district. He said Imamoğlu also handed over a lucrative contract to a company run by Murat Gülibrahimoğlu, a fugitive businessman. The contract involved earthmoving operations across the city, where construction barely stops. Yıldız said the operations raked in revenues amounting to $200 million and could be handled by an IBB subsidiary, but Imamoğlu granted it to Gülibrahimoğlu’s company, in which he was secretly a business partner. He said the company resorted to shady practices such as double billing and fake invoices to further boost the income that was later transferred abroad.
He claimed Imamoğlu also reaped benefits from granting permits to buildings overlooking the Bosporus, with exquisite views of the waterway. Yıldız said Imamoğlu ordered two hotels expanding their premises in Bosporus skylines to pay $27 million, effectively overlooking illegal expansion. He said most payments or bribes were collected by the brother of Fatih Keleş, another IBB official, and accumulated in an office owned by Keleş. He stated that Imamoğlu was aware and in control of the money flow.
Yıldız said Imamoğlu told IBB officials that they were under surveillance, about eight months before the anti-graft operation led to his arrest.
Another allegation voiced by Yıldız was awarding the ownership of a vast 49-acre plot of land owned by IBB’s bus company to an associated company. Yıldız said Imamoğlu told them to hand over the land to Adem Soytekin, a close associate, through a tender, but another company won the tender. He said Soytekin then contacted the owner of that company and threatened him that construction on those lands would be “disrupted” if he did not cooperate with him.
