All in the name of easy money...

Let's start by refreshing our memories.

A young man born in 1991 named Mehmet Aydın had established a system called Çiftlik Bank in 2016.

He was going to sell virtual cows to people.

The premise was extremely simple: cows would grow on the farm, produce milk, earn money, and the money coming from this would be distributed to investors.

Moreover, the earnings were not just anything.

He was promising a 100 percent profit within a year. In a short time, a large number of people entered the system. There is a Turkish saying for this: "Nothing could be better than this"; they were going to earn money the easy way, without working, without effort, and without breaking a sweat.

Thousands of people invested their money without thinking, without questioning at all.

In 2017, the system grew rapidly. However, it also caught the attention of some. An official investigation was launched, and it was determined that this was a pyramid scheme. 

The Capital Markets Board (SPK) filed a criminal complaint at the end of 2017. 

A significant portion of those who invested money only realized the trap set for them when payments were delayed in 2018.

The bubble burst, and the rightful owners were left empty-handed.

Mehmet Aydın, who had gotten himself into a mess, packed his bags in March 2018, took to his heels, and fled abroad.

The prosecutor's office prepared an indictment against him within a month, and on May 31, Turkey requested his extradition from Brazil, where he had fled. On July 3, 2021, he was brought to Turkey from that country and taken into custody. 

The scandal that broke out with "Tosuncuk," who led people on with the promise of "high earnings from a virtual farm" in 2018, still remains fresh in our memories. Not much time has passed since then.

As such....

This time, they fed the people of our country not cows, but a "fund" system of unknown origin. 

The essence of the story was the same.

Again, give money, wait, and get rich.

In the fund scandal, of course, we are talking about a much more complex financial mechanism. Some funds collected a very large portion of the shares in circulation on the stock exchange, pushed the prices of these shares up, the rising prices increased the value and performance of the funds, and the high return attracted the money of new investors.

The crisis became visible when Pusula Portföy announced that it could not meet investors' withdrawal requests on time for some funds. 

Then, similar payment problems emerged at Tera as well.

In other words, while the system was working, everyone seemed to be winning. Money was coming in, prices were rising, returns were rising, and as returns rose, more money was coming in.

Until someone asked for their money back.

Look at the point the fund scandal has reached today. The picture that has emerged is truly grave.

For my part, I don't really get hung up on the details regarding the complex financial mechanisms and legal process of the matter.

It is not just the fund managers, portfolio companies, or the SPK's audit mechanism that we need to address.

We really need to talk about what we have become as a society.

The psychosocial background of the issue is extremely important! Whenever a major fraud is uncovered or a scandal breaks out in Turkey, we ask the same question:

How did these people get fooled?

Then we look for the answer in very distant places.

The audit was weak...

Institutions did not do their job...

The system had loopholes...

Someone manipulated the market...

All of these are true.

But one more question needs to be asked:

Well, why are people so willing to fall into these and similar traps?

Because we have a disease in Turkey that is growing and, unfortunately, extremely difficult to treat:

The passion for earning easy money!

Let's put on our reading glasses.

A period began with the political Islamist government in which access to credit, consumption, and participation in the financial system expanded extraordinarily. While the government was enriching its own supporters on one hand, it opened the money taps to create a core voter base on the other.

The numbers are clear.

According to Central Bank data, while the ratio of household financial debt to GDP was at the 2 percent level in 2002, this ratio rose to 20 percent in 2013. The share of consumer loans and credit cards in final consumption rose rapidly.

There were economic reasons for this.

Falling inflation, falling interest rates, the growth of the credit market, the spread of the banking system, and so on.

All of these are real.

But the economic transformation also had cultural consequences.

Consuming became easier.

Borrowing became easier.

Ostentation grew.

Over time, appearing rich became more important than wealth itself.

The economic and social climate shaped by the AKP since 2002 normalized a lifestyle based on consumption and credit. As a result, the understanding of "work, produce, save" was increasingly replaced by the understanding of "seize the opportunity, grow your money, don't miss out on life."

Getting rich overnight...

Buying a plot of land and selling it a few months later...

Making a fortune from cryptocurrency...

Getting into a "guaranteed" investment mentioned by an acquaintance...

Seeing that a fund has made a 100 percent return and saying, "I'll get in too"...

Let's not beat around the bush, there is the same psychology behind all of this:

"Let me not put in the effort and struggle, let the money come immediately"

Yet, the people of this country in the past used to think differently.

They would sow seeds in the field, wait for months; they would open a shop, lift the shutters in the morning, lower them in the evening; they would save money for years to buy a house.

They would leave a shop to their child.

They would say "sweat of the brow."

They would say "halal earnings."

They would say "drop by drop, it becomes a lake."

Now, the people of my country don't want to wait for it to become a lake! Or they are looking for it to become a lake with a single drop. 

That is why Çiftlik Bank was so instructive. People were supposedly going to earn money from animal husbandry. In reality, they hadn't bought cows, but a dream of easy wealth.

In today's fund scandal, it should be debated whether what was sold was only a fund share. Because the story of high returns also triggers the greed of the investor.

"Those guys earned 200 percent, why shouldn't I?"

Perhaps the most important lesson the fund scandal should teach us is here. Of course, what the SPK saw and when, which transactions Borsa Istanbul monitored and how, why public institutions did not intervene earlier, and who will be held responsible for which crimes at the end of the investigation must all be revealed in every detail.

But it is also clear that no matter how much state supervision is strengthened, a structure that regulates human greed cannot be established.

A person who wants easy money eventually finds someone who promises easy money. If the way to get rich in this country is still seen as "getting a tip" instead of working for years, producing, investing, and calculating risks, tomorrow another fund will appear, another application will appear, another "opportunity" will appear, another miracle investor will appear.

And the people of my country will pour their millions of liras from one place to another.

Then we will all ask together:

"How did they get fooled?"

Maybe we need to change the real question:

"Why do we all want to believe that we can get rich the easy way?"

Because where there is no financial literacy, greed is the fraudster's strongest capital. The people of my country must now learn how money is earned before learning where to put their savings.

Because there is no such thing as easy money.

Let us end our article by saying: There are only those who convince you that you will earn easy money.