After two decades in power, Erdogan faces a concerted challenge. Polls show his main rival, Kemal Kilinçaroglu, a former accountant and longtime bureaucrat, with a slight lead.
Many reports from Turkey in recent months have shown that relatives and business and political associates of Turkish President Erdogan have acquired real estate and secured residence permits in other countries, as well as moving some of their wealth abroad, especially in offshore accounts, as part of the escape and contingency plan in case of election defeat on May 14.
Some of the countries identified as havens for Erdogan’s friends who have become rich through embezzlement, kickbacks, corrupt schemes and organized crime “are Greece, Spain, Portugal and Montenegro, which offer residency to attract investors under of the so-called Golden Visa or Golden Passport programs’.
Some have taken their family members to the US and are trying to secure residency permits, while others have made preparations in Qatar, which is ruled by Erdogan’s ally the al-Thani family.
To prevent this escape, Erdogan reportedly imposed a secret travel ban on around 1,000 people who have been working closely with the regime for years. The Turkish president fears that if these people move abroad, they might reveal the “dirty dealings” they were involved in if pressured and create a headache for him and his family.
In recent years, many Erdogan supporters have taken advantage of Portugal’s Golden Visa program, putting Turkey in third place among all countries whose citizens have applied for residency visas, after China and Brazil. Statistics show that 547 Turks obtained residence permits between 2012 and 2023 in Portugal alone. The figure does not include their family members, who were automatically eligible for residence permits.
Similarly in Greece, the Turks are following the Chinese in obtaining residence permits through investment projects under a similar Golden Visa program. Between 2014 and 2022, 631 Turks became residents according to the Greek Ministry of Immigration and Asylum.
Although most of these countries have amended their laws and regulations to limit Golden Visa programs or have made it more difficult for applicants to obtain, efforts to secure visas from Turkey are reportedly continuing.
Some of the people revealed to have made property investments in other countries include Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is said to have secret assets in the UK. She has a luxury apartment in Camellia House in the Vista Chelsea Bridge complex, worth almost £1.5 million.
Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s MIT intelligence service, is another person who has implemented his escape plan, according to reports in the Turkish capital. He fears he will be held accountable for the dirty and clandestine work he has done for Erdogan if the government changes, and has reportedly sent his son Halit Fidan to the US to explore residency options.
The Fidan family grew rich in Turkey through corrupt schemes, especially by selling products imported from abroad in non-tendered contracts under “shell companies”. Fidan and his son were protected from legal trouble by the Erdogan government.
The “bombshell” revelations made by Ali Yesildak, a former confidant of Erdogan, revealing how the corrupt network put billions of dollars into the president’s pocket, suggest that Erdogan’s fears are well founded.
Yesildak recorded a series of videos and shared them with Germany-based investigative journalist Güven for publication, where he exposed bribes and kickbacks in government tenders in collaboration with Erdogan government officials.
Meanwhile, some Erdogan-linked businessmen and politicians who have not yet received residency abroad are using tourist visas to move their families out of Turkey ahead of the election as a backup plan. They will decide whether to bring their families back to Turkey based on the election results. The opposition vows to launch investigations into the Erdogan government’s corrupt practices and punish all those who conspired to steal state funds and taxpayers’ money by engaging in corrupt schemes.
