Eight people including a former deputy governor of Turkey’s central bank have been arrested as part of a corruption investigation centred on the Interbank Card Centre (BKM), Halk TV reported on October 17.

The suspects detained at the behest of the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office include the former deputy central bank head, Emrah Sener, and Baran Aytas, a former BKM general manager.

The operation was conducted on the quiet amid many other ongoing judicial operations that have lately made local headlines, the media outlet said.

Central bank filed criminal complaint

In response to word of the arrests, the central bank said in a written statement that in December 2024 it filed a criminal complaint at the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office after conducting an internal audit at BKM.

The central bank controls 51% of BKM, launched in 1990, while the remainder is held by local banks. The national lender acquired its stake in 2020 during Sener’s term as deputy governor.

Following the central bank statement, government-news service Anadolu Agency reported that 14 people were detained in all, with seven, including Sener and Aytas, formally arrested on the instruction of a local court. 

Appointed by Albayrak

Sener was appointed as a deputy governor at the central bank in 2016, during the tenure in office as finance minister of Berat Albayrak, the younger son-in-law of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He served until July 2023, when the government’s current economic team – appointed by Erdogan with a pledge that “orthodox” monetary and other policies would be permitted – took  the wheel.

Sener has a reputation as a bright financial engineer, who invented a backdoor FX market intervention scheme run via public banks. That operation remains in place. The prosecution is not related to Sener’s activities during his time at the central bank.

Tweet: Turkey’s current "orthodox" finance minister Mehmet Simsek (@memetsimsek) was delighted when Sener was appointed to his central bank post in 2016.

Gangs that exploit the regime hustling for gains

A consensus holds in Turkey that the gangs that operate within the Erdogan regime are hustling and jostling for gains. The many operations sparked by prosecutors, which have lately targeted Erdoganist businessmen as well as officials and gangsters, are said to reflect this.

Unfortunately few details of what exactly is taking place are unknown.

Local news outlet Sol on October 17 published a wrap-up of information on the characters assumed to have formed, and to be forming, power factions within the regime to fight for spoils, as well as developments that have to date been outlined in media reports.

The arrest of Rezan Epozdemir, a lawyer, along with the investigations into Can Holding, Ciner Holding, Papara and Paramount Hotel, are all related to the intra-regime power plays.

“Could spiral out of control”

Sol writes of “an internal conflict that could spiral out of control at any moment”. But the observer can take that as agitation or political propaganda. Sol is a publication of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP).

Turks say “the hungry chicken dreams of itself in a wheat silo”.

The so-called opposition parties in Turkey (bne IntelliNews uses the term “so-called” as regards these parties advisedly as they consistently fail to provide sufficient opposition) led by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) have since 2002 been circulating the idea that the Erdogan regime is suffering a great internal crisis.

Across the last two and a half decades, the CHP’s big line of propaganda has been that Erdogan has already lost the “upcoming” snap election. Erdogan never loses.

A while ago, CHP leader Ozgur Ozel decided to stretch credulity a little bit further by saying that the government had essentially fallen already and that the actual party in real power in Turkey was the CHP. Oddly, far as anybody knows, Erdogan remains in residence at the presidential palace and no removal vans have been seen in the forecourt.