Dilan Polat is a grain of sand in money laundering

Turkey is debating the money laundering issue centered around social media influencer Dilan Polat with plenty of tabloid flavor and images overflowing with excess, vulgarity, and lumpen behavior.

The money laundering allegedly carried out by Dilan Polat and her team is not even the tip of the iceberg when looking at the money laundered in Turkey in a single year.

In fact, it is not even a grain of sand in the sea.

International reports estimate that the amount of money laundered in Turkey is around 3 billion dollars annually. However, according to experts, this figure reaches up to 70 billion dollars.

With the AKP government, the country has become a hub for dirty money and money laundering. During this administration, we were placed on the grey list twice, in 2015 and 2021. This is the list of countries that launder money and fail to provide sufficient safeguards against terrorist financing.

Along with Turkey, countries such as Cambodia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Panama, Uganda, and Zimbabwe are among those on the list.

Turkey holds the record for being on the grey list with its economic size, that is, its gross domestic product exceeding 1 trillion dollars.

Money laundering has brought drugs, gangs, and the mafia along with it. So much so that we are now witnessing the settling of scores between the mafias of two different countries on our streets.

Turkey is categorized as a country with primary risk under the same heading not only by the FATF, which monitors money laundering and terrorist financing, but also by the US Department of State.

While the country continues to debate the soap bubble of Dilan Polat and the accompanying social media influencers, the unseen part of the iceberg is growing before us as a major problem.

Bad money drives out good; in addition to the social collapse and security concerns it creates, money laundering also prevents foreign capital and permanent investments from entering our country.

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"ISTANBUL AGAIN" BUT NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

"Look, I am setting a headline today. Istanbul Again," said Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

He placed Istanbul before his party as the biggest target in the local government elections to be held on March 31.

The response to Erdoğan from Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu was not delayed. "He is five years behind. The 'Istanbul Again' headline was set in 2019," he said, adding, "That journey continues, let them keep watching us."

Of course, the Palace is "watching" İmamoğlu closely. So much so that the Ministry of Interior launched an intensive investigation into his time as the mayor of Beylikdüzü 10 years ago, and an indictment was prepared alleging that İmamoğlu caused a public loss of 250 thousand TL at that time.

The hearing for the case, which was held yesterday, was postponed until after the election, but the sycophant press took this case as an opportunity to bring İmamoğlu to the screens with allegations of bid-rigging.

So, what was the truth?

In reality, there is no allegation of bid-rigging. The case contains a highly subjective allegation regarding İmamoğlu, such as "failure to perform the requirements of his duty," and the source of this allegation is based on a report that does not actually exist.

In other words, this is the extent of the so-called scandalous event that the inspectors, who were searching for a crime in İmamoğlu as if digging a well with a needle, managed to find.

In the indictment, the then-mayor of Beylikdüzü, Ekrem İmamoğlu, is accused of "why did you not fulfill the requirements of this report despite the internal auditor's report." However, at that time, there was neither an internal audit unit in the Beylikdüzü municipality nor was such a report written that would constitute evidence for the indictment.

A crime is being manufactured against Ekrem İmamoğlu from a non-existent report.

This situation actually reveals the pathetic state of the AKP before the local elections.

The Palace, which tries to field important AKP names against İmamoğlu, from Süleyman Soylu to Ali Yerlikaya, from Murat Kurum to Adil Karaismailoğlu, encounters the reality emerging from the polls at every opportunity.

A candidate cannot be found against Ekrem İmamoğlu.

Erdoğan says "Istanbul Again," but with baseless allegations and character assassinations during the election process, the AKP is still the same as you know it...