Was this an operation to seize what was under the mattress?

Let's look at the issue from this perspective as well.

The figure we are talking about in the exploding fund scandal, that is, the total size of the funds taken into liquidation, is 18.3 billion dollars, or 830 billion TL!

I am not saying this; Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek announced it.

The volume of the embezzlement and the lost cash are of incredible proportions. The figures reflected in the judicial investigations are truly staggering.

Within the scope of the investigation, suspicious money transfers totaling approximately 4.1 billion TL were detected, including 15 million dollars from the account of Pusula Finans Holding Chairman of the Board Serdar Turhan to a bank in Switzerland, and 25 million euros from the account of Pusula Portföy Chairman of the Board Muhammed Yarız.

In a major private bank at the center of the crisis, 45 billion TL in cash was withdrawn in a single night from a fund shared by only 8 people, reducing the fund's assets from 52.8 billion TL to 7.4 billion TL.

In the operations carried out by the Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office and MASAK, the total amount that could be frozen or seized in the suspects' accounts so far is only at the level of 750 million TL!

In other words, a drop in the bucket!

Although a 6-month liquidation process has been initiated for over 130 funds belonging to Tera, Pusula, Hedef, Atlas, A1, Pardus, and Bulls Portfolio companies by the decision of the Capital Markets Board (SPK), investors will experience serious principal losses due to the inflated values of the assets.

However, for me, what is truly frightening is not so much the issue of billions of liras in lost money, but the number of people drawn into the system.

According to the SPK's statement, there were 455 thousand 758 unique investors in the 131 funds taken into liquidation.

455 thousand 758 people!

Almost half a million people...

When you calculate it with their family members, there are 2 million people affected by this scandal.

When we consider Turkey's population aged 18 and over, roughly one in every 140-150 adults has been among the investors of these funds.

So, this is not an event that happened to a few rich people. We can think of this as a story that a significant segment of our people is involved in.

Another question needs to be brought to the agenda here.

Where did these people's money actually go?

Before giving the answer, let's open a parenthesis.

For years, the government has been trying to seize the gold kept under the mattress by our people in one way or another.

It's not a secret!

It is estimated that the amount of gold kept at home outside the banking system in Turkey is approximately 5 thousand tons, and its total value at current market prices reaches 600 billion dollars.

We are not talking about just any amount. It is an amount that could almost cover Turkey's entire external debt!

If even a tenth of it entered the system, it would be a great relief...

The government even developed models connecting jewelers, refineries, and banks for this purpose. It established mechanisms for Aunt Ayşe, Sister Fatma, and Mother Hatice to put the gold they saved for rainy days under their pillows, or kept to marry off their son who had not yet intended to get married, into the system.

In return, this gold would be valued as gold or TL in a bank account.

The government's efforts yielded results to some extent.

In the Central Bank's 2026 Financial Stability Report, it was stated that "policies implemented to integrate gold, which has an important place in household savings historically and culturally in Turkey, into the financial system have been effective in the increase in Central Bank gold reserves."

But it is not easy to convince our people.

Anyone who has read a little bit of Turkey's sociology knows this. The vast majority of our nation knows no investment tool other than houses, land, and gold.

In that case, the government had to tell a compelling story to attract citizens to the system, and put a piece of cheese in the trap big enough to cause a mental blackout.

They found the formula: Funds...

They said, don't keep your gold at home; cash it in, take it to the bank, don't keep it in a deposit account, buy funds; make your money work, protect it against inflation, put your savings into the financial system. After all, the real estate market was stagnant, and gold was also stuck at the bottom.

The rush to the funds began.

It is certain that they were very happy when they saw that the money they invested had increased several hundred times on paper, but their happiness did not last long; one morning the system locked up; the bubble had burst.

We have been talking about it for almost a week. We will all wait and see where and how the matter ends.

In a country where there is a government that has had its eye on the wealth under the citizens' mattresses for years, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people turned to funds at the same time is a sociological and economic event that needs to be examined on its own.

Let's underline this with a thick pen.

How many of these people cashed in their gold, how many sold their foreign currency, how many withdrew their deposits, and how many moved the money they had saved for years into these funds?

It is also necessary to seek the answers to these questions.

If they really broke their gold under the mattress and entered the financial system, and are now facing the risk of losing a significant portion of their money, there is more to it than just a fund scandal.

In order for this to be revealed in all its details, the trail of the lost money must be followed, and its political connections must be exposed.

Otherwise, the rest is just empty talk, let's put a period to our article by saying this.