A Turkish drug trafficker indicted in the US collaborated with an Iranian fraudster to launder money for Iran, using the breakaway state of Turkish Cyprus as a base while paying tens of millions of US dollars in hush money to Turkey’s interior minister for protection from investigation.
The bombshell revelations came from Cemil Önal, a bookkeeper who worked for slain drug trafficker Halil Falyalı who, along with his family, had amassed tens of billions of dollars from various illegal activities, including gambling, casinos and the drug trade in the so-called “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC)”, a self-declared independent enclave recognized only by Turkey.
According to an audio recording made by Önal in the fall of 2023 from his prison cell in the Netherlands and shared by Germany-based Turkish journalist Cevheri Güven on YouTube, Falyalı paid $20 million to then-Turkish interior minister Süleyman Soylu for protection from criminal investigations.
Soylu, once designated under sanctions by the US Treasury, aided Falyalı and his associates in avoiding crackdowns in both Turkey and the KKTC, which is effectively controlled by the Turkish government.
The bribe, facilitated by Hüsnü Falyalı, a brother of Halil, was transferred to Ahmed Nazari Shirehjini, an Iranian accused of orchestrating a large-scale fake investment scam aimed at European citizens. It was subsequently routed to Sadık Soylu, the brother of the Turkish interior minister, who served as the intermediary between crime syndicates and the minister.
According to the bookkeeper, the payment was made on March 7, 2020. It appears that the Falyalı family received its full share since their name had never surfaced during investigations by the cybercrime police unit into illegal online betting schemes in Turkey.
Despite some suspects admitting during interrogation that they were involved in illegal betting schemes linked to the Falyalı family, members of the Falyalı family were deliberately omitted from official statements under orders from Interior Minister Soylu. Instead, lower-profile individuals were made scapegoats in numerous police investigations.
Continue here: Nordic Monitor
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