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Erdogan Was Target in Bribery Inquiry, Turkish Officer Says

  • Officer says now-president was ‘number one’ among suspects
  • Jury sees surveillance photos of Zarrab, bribery courier
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Photographer: Konstantinos Tsakalidis/Bloomberg
Updated on

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of a bribery and money laundering probe in that country related to illicit flows of Iranian oil proceeds, a former Istanbul police officer testified in New York.

The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, said the investigation initially focused on the organization run by gold trader Reza Zarrab, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the “number one” target in a group that also included Mehmet Zafer Caglayan, the former economy minister, and Suleyman Aslan, ex-chief executive of Turkiye Bank Halkasi AS, a large Turkish state-owned bank, which was central to the scheme.