Journalist Cevheri Güven and opposition lawmaker Ahmet Şık describe political connections surrounding the fund crisis and demand answers about financial gains, regulatory independence and possible conflicts of interest.
Turkey’s investment-fund scandal has prompted allegations that extend well beyond portfolio managers and stock-market traders. In a recent video, journalist Cevheri Güven describes a network connecting financial businesses to figures around President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. In his September 28 statement, Workers’ Party of Turkey lawmaker Ahmet Şık raises questions about a senior ruling-party politician’s alleged investment profits and the financial arrangements surrounding Justice Minister Akın Gürlek and his wife.
Their accounts address different parts of the controversy. Güven concentrates on the political and business relationships around Tera and Pusula. Şık questions whether people connected to the government face the same scrutiny as political opponents, while detailing alleged housing and financial benefits involving the justice minister. These remain allegations requiring investigation; neither account, on its own, establishes Erdoğan’s personal participation in the alleged financial misconduct.
Güven’s Account: A Suspect’s Alleged Access to the Justice Minister
One of Güven’s central allegations concerns businessman Bilal Çalışkan. According to Güven, Çalışkan was in New York during Erdoğan’s United Nations visit when a warrant was issued against him in Turkey in connection with the fund investigation.
Güven says Çalışkan posted a photograph showing himself with Justice Minister Akın Gürlek and businessman Ahmet Ahlatçı. He alleges that Çalışkan subsequently deleted the photograph and made his Instagram account inaccessible. Güven presents the episode as an indication of how closely a person sought in the investigation could move within government-connected business circles.
In the transcript, Güven also describes a police interview document in which Pusula’s chairman was questioned about precious-metals transactions exceeding six billion lira involving Çalışkan and his company. A September 30 report by Bold Medya recounts the same allegations and states that Pusula chairman Serdar Turhan defended the transactions as commercial activity and denied wrongdoing. The reported transaction volume does not establish that the money represented illicit proceeds.
Güven goes further, alleging that Çalışkan’s currency-exchange and precious-metals businesses formed part of a network used to move money abroad, including through cryptocurrency. He connects that alleged network to businesspeople associated with ASKON, the Anatolian Lions Businessmen’s Association, and to figures close to former prime minister Binali Yıldırım. These money-laundering allegations are Güven’s claims and are not independently established by the supplied transcript.
Presidential Connections Around Tera
Güven’s second major argument is that prominent political connections helped make Tera appear secure to investors.
He points particularly to Fecir Alptekin, whom he identifies as a presidential chief adviser. Güven argues that her appointment to a Tera board position conveyed reassurance at a time when investors were hearing warnings about market manipulation. In his interpretation, the presence of someone associated with Erdoğan encouraged investors and intermediaries to believe that the business enjoyed political backing.
Company disclosures confirm a narrower, specific fact: Alptekin was appointed to the board of Tera Yatırım Menkul Değerler in November 2025, with responsibilities involving corporate governance, audit and early risk detection. The company’s annual report states that she left that independent board position on January 1, 2026, following an assessment of independence criteria. Those records do not establish that she managed the affected funds or participated in misconduct.
Güven also discusses former deputy treasury and finance minister Bülent Aksu’s association with Tera. He interprets changes in board membership through the rivalries and relationships within Erdoğan’s political establishment, including connections to former finance minister Berat Albayrak.
His broader account names former officials, politically connected executives and people he associates with intelligence circles. Güven argues that this accumulation of influential names helped create an impression of protection around the financial businesses. Whether those connections affected investment decisions or regulatory action would require separate documentary evidence.
Pusula and Alleged Links to Government Figures
Güven argues that public attention has focused too heavily on Tera while overlooking Pusula’s political relationships.
He identifies Ömer Burkay, whom he describes as a shareholder and board member of Katılımevim, as a connection to Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz. Güven alleges that important figures in this network have escaped the scrutiny directed at less influential participants. The transcript does not independently demonstrate that Yılmaz intervened in the businesses or protected anyone from investigation.
Güven also alleges that businesses associated with the Pusula network received a large share of earthquake-housing construction work in Osmaniye and subcontracted it to other firms. He claims that subcontractors were required to make payments through an alleged collection arrangement at Hacı Bayram Veli University and to the archery foundation associated with Bilal Erdoğan.
These are among the most serious claims in his account. They concern alleged demands for payments linked to obtaining public reconstruction work. Establishing them would require procurement documents, subcontracting agreements, payment records and corroborating testimony. Güven uses the allegations to argue that the fund controversy belongs to a wider network of political access and financial advantage.
Şık’s Statement: Kaya’s Alleged Investment Profits
Ahmet Şık begins his statement by questioning the treatment of former minister and senior AK Party politician Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya.
He alleges that Kaya and her husband invested a combined 163 million lira in a single stock and earned more than 2.2 billion lira within a short period. He also questions the origin of the invested money.
Those amounts are presented here as Şık’s assertions. His statement does not itself provide the complete transaction records needed to verify the source of the capital, the timing of the trades or the calculation of the alleged profits.
Şık explicitly maintains his support for the principle that defendants should ordinarily be tried without pretrial detention. His challenge is directed at what he describes as unequal enforcement: political opponents are imprisoned on questionable grounds, he argues, while government-connected figures facing serious allegations receive different treatment.
The Süzer Plaza Allegations
The largest part of Şık’s statement concerns Süzer Plaza, the Istanbul building commonly known as Gökkafes, and an apartment allegedly occupied by Gürlek and his wife, Elif Gülşah Gürlek.
Şık alleges that the apartment is registered to businessman Davut Yasin Bilen and carries a monthly rent of 750,000 lira. He asks whether that rent is being paid, who pays it and whether bank-transfer records exist.
He further alleges that renovations and furnishings costing 30 million lira were undertaken by a company belonging to the Süzer family. He asks who ultimately financed that work and what relationship Gürlek has with Bilen.
Şık places these allegations alongside an earlier drug investigation involving Ali Baran Süzer. According to his account, Süzer was detained while Gürlek was Istanbul’s chief prosecutor and subsequently released under judicial supervision. Şık alleges that discussions involving substantial sums occurred at Süzer Plaza during that period and that Gürlek later became a tenant in the building.
That sequence is the basis of Şık’s demand for explanations. It does not, by itself, establish that a judicial decision was exchanged for a benefit.
Şık also identifies Elif Gülşah Gürlek as serving in SPK’s management and says the regulator has offices in the same building. He alleges monthly restaurant bills of 250,000 lira at Nobu and asks whether they were paid by her, the justice minister or Süzer Holding.
His questions are concrete: who owns the apartment, who pays the rent, who financed the renovations and who settles the restaurant bills? The answers could establish whether the arrangements are ordinary private expenditures or involve benefits requiring disclosure and investigation.
Taken together, Güven’s and Şık’s accounts place Erdoğan’s government under pressure to explain the relationships surrounding the scandal. Güven alleges that political access helped financial networks operate and project credibility. Şık questions whether senior officials and their families have received financial advantages incompatible with independent oversight.
Neither account proves that Erdoğan personally directed the alleged scheme. Both challenge his government to permit an investigation that follows financial records and political connections wherever they lead—including into its own inner circle.
