Turkey Flirts With Another Banking Crisis

When Turkish police searched the Istanbul home of Süleyman Aslan in December—part of a series of raids in a corruption crackdown—they found $4.5 million stashed in three shoe boxes and hidden in bookshelves. Aslan, then chief executive officer of state-owned Turkiye Halk Bankasi, said in court that the money came from donations collected for his alma mater in central Turkey and to help build a university in Macedonia.

Dozens of phone conversations purported to be police wiretaps and leaked over the Internet in recent weeks instead paint a portrait of a banker helping a businessman smuggle gold and transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to Iran in an effort to evade U.S. sanctions. The police allege that the money found at Aslan’s home was a bribe to ensure his cooperation.