Turkish authorities on Friday detained 45 more suspects in a new round of operations against alleged corruption at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB).
The suspects included jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu’s private secretary and security manager, as well as the executive officers of the IBB's real estate subsidy KIPTAŞ and waste management service ISTAÇ.
Police said the suspects were caught in raids across Istanbul, western Izmir, northeastern Trabzon, southern Antalya, eastern Tunceli and northwestern Kocaeli provinces.
The search continues for the four other wanted suspects still at large, police said.
Imamoğlu, a popular figure in the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was arrested in March along with dozens of municipality employees and businesspeople on charges of corruption.
The politician is accused of running a criminal organization that profited from rigged tenders and rampant bribery in exchange for building and zoning permits and awarding tenders.
The CHP has launched rallies and incited riots after Imamoğlu’s arrest. It claims that Imamoğlu’s arrest is politically motivated, as the party had nominated him for the next presidential election. However, the government argues that the CHP’s claim and pro-Imamoğlu rallies are simply an attempt to cover up the mayor’s alleged wrongdoings, which range from rigging public tenders to taking bribes.
Imamoğlu has denied all allegations in his interrogation, but prosecutors point out a wide array of evidence, from financial irregularities to bribes and money laundering activities. Those include reports from MASAK, technical surveillance data and testimonies from dozens of witnesses.
Earlier this week, media reports published a testimony from Ahmet Çiçek, the second high-profile name to invoke leniency in exchange for information against corruption.
Çiçek, owner of an advertising company detained alongside Imamoğlu, reportedly told investigators that all advertising companies seeking deals with IBB for billboard rentals and other businesses were required to be approved by Imamoğlu’s adviser since 2019, who personally instructed companies how much they should pay, bypassing legal tender processes.
Çiçek also confessed to arranging fake invoices for businesspeople involved in Imamoğlu’s corruption case.
Another suspect, Ertan Yıldız, the head of the IBB department in charge of subsidiaries and adviser to Imamoğlu, told prosecutors that under Imamoğlu’s tenure, most public tenders launched by the 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 businessperson. 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.