Millionaire Pyramid Scam Involving Fatih Terim Shakes Europe

The “Fatih Terim” case that shakes Europe due to a millionaire pyramid scam

The name of coach Fatih Terim, former Turkey coach, made headlines after being fired after less than six months with Panathinaikos in Greece despite the good results. But now the last name of the Turkish football legend was caught in the middle of a million-dollar scam due to a classic pyramid scheme where a banker used clients’ investments to pay large benefits for other users in transactions that were made with briefcases full of bills.

Among the renowned footballers who were victims of what is being called in Turkey as the “Fatih Terim fund”, are the former Barcelona Arda Turán and the great goalkeeper at Galatasaray Fernando Muslera. It is estimated that the players entrusted their money to a bank, which would have used the coach’s name to give solidity to the initiative.

The Hürriye newspaper confirmed that the banker who was targeted for the scam was Terim’s financial advisor. But in addition to the executive who would have launched the plan to defraud the players, detained today, there are six other people charged in the case for which the Prosecutor’s Office requests a maximum of 252 years in prison for the former owner of the bank. renowned in Turkey.

While the scandal grows, in the last few hours it became known that Terim denounced the Turkish bank Denizbank in the middle of the investigation. ”Our client filed an accusation against the directors because the information about the deposits given by the director of the subsidiary and other employees of the bank does not reflect the truth,” said the lawyers of the 70-year-old technician.

According to the aforementioned Turkish newspaper, in the lawsuits filed by the lawyers the following was raised: “When the people whose trust was attempted to be gained thanks to the name of Fatih Terim wanted to call Terim about this matter, Secil Erzan prevented it and told these people that the fund was confidential. In other words, Secil Erzan prevented these people from communicating with Fatih Terim. Fatih Terim trusted Denizbank, a bank, as millions of citizens did and should have done. During all these processes, Terim personally met not only with Secil Erzan, but also with Hakan Ates, CEO of Denizbank, who is the highest-ranking manager of Denizbank, many times, and trusted the bank and its representatives. Within the framework of this trust, the client carried out large-volume transactions with Denizbank for many years.”

Arda Turán was one of the victims of the pyramid scam (Shutterstock)

In November last year, the 14th High Criminal Court of Istanbul launched the case involving the former director of the Denizbank Levent bank: Secil Erzan is accused of defrauding at least 18 personalities from the sports world for a value of $80 million with the alleged promise of profits through “high-yield private funds.”

The Turkish media NTV indicated that in Erzan’s last statement – her fourth – during the month of April, the former bank manager did not mention the coach. “It is rumored that I did not say anything about Fatih Terim. The professor had been making losses in private banking for a while and wanted to change banks. He gave me 300 thousand dollars and told me ‘do what you want, you can do it, use this money.’ Then he gave me 1 million dollars,” she declared.

The Hürriye newspaper replicates the coach’s argument: they claim that they used his name to attract investors and now they want to leave him associated. “There is no fund created by Fatih Terim. There is no special fund in which he is involved. There is no person directed by Fatih Terim to any fund. The only person benefiting from the public perception and reputation assassination of Fatih Terim is Denizbank. To protect his own reputation in public opinion, Denizbank has made efforts to associate Fatih Terim with the scandals that he has caused with false statements,” they detailed.

Beyond Turán and the goalkeeper who played for several years as the reference for the position in the Uruguayan national team, other names that were known were Emre Belözoglu (former Atlético de Madrid), Emre Çolak (with a past at Deportivo of La Coruña) and two Galatasaray stars who recently left professional football such as Semih Kaya and Selcuk Inan.

“Some of the victims who testified as part of the investigation stated that Erzan (former director of the bank) told them that Fatih Terim was the most important client of the fund, that they had been working for between 10 and 15 years, that Terim had obtained millions of dollars of benefits with this fund and that he even referred to the fund as the ‘Fatih Terim’ fund,” they indicated in the local media.

When the case exploded, Arda Turán was one of those who exposed the situation he experienced and with which he suffered the loss of a good part of the savings he achieved in his long career as a player after his time at clubs such as Galatasaray, Aleti and the team. Catalan. “He tricked me by saying, ‘Whoever invests in this fund will make a profit.’ I gave away more than 13 million. All the money and effort he had earned. The job for years suddenly disappeared,” the midfielder, who is a reference in his country, said in front of the court, to the point that he played 100 games with the Turkish national team.

“It destroyed all the money and effort I earned by working for years by cheating on myself. I am very sorry, this incident exhausted me a lot. All my savings were lost in an instant,” added the former footballer who became a coach and is currently the manager of Eyüpspor, a team that plays in the second division of Turkish football and is in first position in the tournament.

Fernando Muslera is a legend of the Turkish Galatasaray and also suffered the scam (REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

For his part, the other strong name among the complainants (Muslera) made a judicial presentation against the manager of the DenizBank bank – financial advisor to coach Terim – since at first he contributed $1,200,000 to a fund and stated that he only They returned USD 700 thousand. When the goalkeeper gave his testimony in front of the Terrorism and Organized Crime office in Istanbul, he explained the money he disbursed and stated that the accused assured them that the fund would have a return of 35% and they would begin to receive the investment back within a few months. .

In the statement, Muslera also made it clear that Erzan went to his residence in the Turkish capital and told him “face to face” that his money was “safe” in this fund to which several players joined because they trusted that one of the pioneers It was coach Fatih Terim.

The next few hours could be decisive in the future of the case. This Friday, May 24, there will be a new hearing and former manager Erzan will once again have the floor in the case in which she is accused of “falsification of private documents” and “qualified fraud during the commercial activities of people who are merchants or company managers or acting on behalf of the company, and in the scope of the activities of the cooperative of cooperative managers.

In the indictment, a sentence of between 77 and 252 years in prison is requested for Erzan, while for the others targeted (Ali Yörük, Kerem Can, Hüseyin Eligül, Nazlı Can, Atilla Yörük and Asiye Öztürk) the prosecution expects sentences of between 3 and 85 years in prison for the same crimes.

The topic was once again on the cover of the sports media because Fatih Terim has a legendary career. In addition to his time at the helm of his country’s national team, he also coached Galatasaray on four occasions. Outside of Türkiye, he was the manager of Fiorentina and AC Milan. In his record, he includes 20 titles, including the 2000 UEFA Cup with one of the great clubs of Turkish football.

Therim’s lawyers released a public statement in which they clarified that they filed the lawsuit on behalf of their client and stated that the DT made a statement as a complainant in the case: they seek “compensation for the moral damages suffered by unjustified attacks on the rights personal”.

Turkish coach Fatih Terim (EFE)
2024-05-23 17:36:00
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