'He was a legendary Turkish media mogul with a £500 million fortune: Now he is in a state hospital'

In an article written by Varol Ersoy and published on Medya Radar, the cautionary life story of a Turkish media mogul who became one of the world's wealthiest people with a £500 million fortune was brought to light.

Ersoy used the following expressions in his article:

His father's name was İrfan, his mother's name was Safiye. He was born on May 1, 1941, in Lefke. İrfan Bey was a police officer in Cyprus. As for him, he started earning money at an age that could still be called childhood. His first job was selling newspapers in the Maraş region of Famagusta.

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His family moved to England in 1963. He, however, had entered the Faculty of Economics at Istanbul University. But studying did not seem very appealing. His mind was always on business life.

He went to London to join his family.

He entered the business world with his father. He bought a market named Wear Well.

Following the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation, he began working in the textile business in Nicosia.

In 1980, he bought a bankrupt company named Polly Peck International.

In 1983, he established a cardboard box manufacturing facility named Uni-Pac Packaging.

He was quite successful in the textile business. Polly Peck International (PPI) was breaking records in textile exports to the Middle East.

He turned the bankrupt Polly Peck he had purchased into one of England's largest companies.

He himself entered the list of England's 100 wealthiest business people. Polly Peck's gross profit was announced as £9 million in 1982.

In 1984, he named the first ship he bought for commercial purposes Safiye Sultan, in dedication to his mother.

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Meanwhile, he also entered the Turkish market.

The factory named Vestel Elektronik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş., which he established in Manisa, was opened in 1985 by the Prime Minister of the time, Turgut Özal.

He also entered the businesses of bottled water, agricultural product exports, and packaging.

His fortune reached £500 million in 1985.

In 1988, he opened the first branch of Pizza Hut in Turkey at Ataköy Galeria.

With the advice of Turgut Özal, he entered the media sector by purchasing the Günaydın newspaper from Haldun Simavi for 44 million Turkish Lira and £5 million.

It wasn't enough…

He had set his mind on being the biggest in every sector.

After Günaydın, he bought the Güneş and Tan newspapers, and the Gelişim Magazine Group, which published the magazine Nokta. He also added some media outlets in the TRNC to his portfolio.

In 1989, he also bought the fruit marketing company Del Monte and the Japanese electronics company Sansui.

According to the list published by the Sunday Times in 1990, he was the 11th wealthiest person in England.

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However, his business began to deteriorate from this date on.

He entered a financial crisis due to accusations that he had artificially inflated the shares of the company named Polly Peck International (PPI) by establishing shell companies.

Polly Peck International (PPI) went bankrupt in 1990 with a debt of £550 million.

He went from Istanbul to England on December 16, 1990. He was arrested on December 17, 1990.

The number of embezzlement charges against him reached 76 in November 1991.

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He was held in prison in England until 1993.

Meanwhile, almost all of his companies in Turkey were sold.

He was released on £3.5 million bail in 1993.

He fled to the TRNC in his private jet.

He returned to England of his own volition in 2010; as a result of the trial concluded in 2012, he was found guilty of embezzling £29 million.

In the trial against him, he was sentenced to a total of 10 years in prison for 10 of the 13 charges brought against him.

The court in England decided that if he paid £5 million to the investors he had victimized, he would serve the remainder of his sentence in Turkey.

He returned to Turkey on that date, and subsequently began living in modest conditions in the TRNC.

There was nothing left of those old days anymore…

He is now 83 years old and is lying in the Nicosia Dr. Burhan Nalbantoğlu State Hospital due to serious health problems.

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The name of this man, who wrote his name into the history of the Turkish press by acquiring some of Turkey's most important newspapers like Günaydın and Güneş, and pushing out a major figure like Haldun Simavi…

Asil Nadir!

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This journey, which extends from a £500 million fortune to a hospital bed in a state hospital, should be a lesson to everyone…

As for the army of sycophants who once never left his side…

They are now busy polishing the shoes of other bosses and making them take wrong decisions…