Accomplices of Turkish President Erdoğan defrauded a Czech bank of more than 400 million euros. The article with this sharp headline was written by journalist Abdullah Bozkurt, who has been living in exile in Sweden since 2016. The main findings of the article, which contains facts unknown to the Czech public about the Adularya power plant case, are presented in the text below.
As Abdullah Bozkurt states in his article on webu Nordic Monitor, the Adularya power plant was part of the secret plan of the Turkish president, or rather dictator, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his cronies to enrich themselves from confiscated property. After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, Erdoğan decided to take revenge on all the people who wanted him to fall from power – including businessmen.
One of the many seized enterprises was the Naksan Holding concern, comprising 51 companies. Among them is Adularya Enerji, which invested in the construction of the Yunus Emre lignite power plant near Ankara. So far, the Czech media have mainly written about the reasons why this power plant does not work as it should. Bozkurt’s article adds a dark context to this from Turkish politics.
An offer that cannot be refused
Erdoğan allegedly threatened the owners of Naksan a year earlier – in a private meeting in 2015. According to Bozkurt, he was supposed to demand bribes of $250 million from them so that the holding could continue operating. The owners of Naksan, members of the Nakıboğlu family, refused to pay the bribe. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before the dictator Erdoğan struck at them.
In 2016, the confiscated Naksan complex ended up in the administration of the state Deposit Insurance Fund (TSMF), which in recent months proceeded to sell off individual companies. Bozkurt reports that many companies were bought at a bargain price by businessmen close to Erdoğan. Such examples also include the Adularya power plant, on which a claim of Česká exportní banka (ČEB) in the amount of 433 million euros (553 million euros including interest) was “hanging”. However, the Turks managed to obtain this claim by trickery.
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Sebahattin Yıldız, shareholder and CEO of the Yıldızlar SSS Holding corporate group, showed interest in the power plant. And he received the official “blessing” of Turkish politicians. The first contact with ČEB managers was arranged personally by the Turkish ambassador in Prague, Egemen Bağış, Bozkurt, referring to his sources, states that ČEB sold its loan for only 70 million euros (1.7 billion crowns), of which 20 million euros were paid in advance and the rest will be paid in monthly installments.
The contract between ČEB and the Yıldızlar SSS Holding group was signed in February this year. By quantifying the loss of the Czech state from the tragic Adularya power plant project, the Ekonomický deník dealt in March. It is about 9 billion crowns (with lost interest of 12 billion), which will be shared by ČEB and the state export insurance company EGAP. ČEB stated in its annual report for last year that it expects an insurance settlement from EGAP in the amount of 3.87 billion crowns.
Scare and then buy cheap
In his article, Bozkurt states that Czech bankers were convinced by the claims of Turkish applicants that due to legal complications they have little chance of getting their money back. The Turks also strangely “let disappear” the guarantee issued for Adularya Enerji by its sister company Naksan Plastik (one of the main companies within the former Naksan Holding).
The last act of this business tragedy took place in the past weeks. The Turkish fund TMSF sold the confiscated Adularya Enerji power plant to Doruk Madencilik Sanayii ve Ticaret, which belongs to the Yıldızlar SSS Holding group. Minimal starting price was set at 1.715 billion Turkish lira (converted to 2.3 billion crowns), the fund did not announce the sale price.
Businessmen close to President Erdoğan advantageously bought both the debt and the shares of Adularya Enerji. However, they will still have to deal with one big problem – how to bring the two coal-fired units with faulty boilers into permanent and commercially meaningful operation. You can read more about the technical problems at the Adularya power plant for example in the text here.
David Tramba
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