Turkish prosecutors seek up to 10 years in prison for shady businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz

Duvar English 

Turkish prosecutors have prepared an indictment into shady businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz and nine other suspects over money laundering, seeking their arrest for up to 10 years. 

Korkmaz, the owner of SBK Holding, is accused of money laundering via transferring the income he obtained in the U.S. illegally to the companies he owns and its employees.

Only one of the said ten suspects is under arrest, while a detention warrant is in place for Korkmaz and four others. The harmed party was cited as Turkey's Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) in the indictment prepared by Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor's Office's anti-terror bureau. 

The money laundered in question is reportedly part of a decade-long scheme to defraud the U.S. of at least $470 million.

In September last year, prosecutors in Utah submitted a list of properties belonging to Jacob and Isaiah Kingston, also known as the Mormon crime brothers who are Korkmaz's business partners, to a U.S. court, asking for them to be retrieved, including a number of companies and real estates in Turkey.

The Kingston brothers pled guilty last year to a $470-million fraud of a government biofuel programme, which lasted nearly a decade. They transferred over $134 million in fraudulent proceeds to companies in Turkey and Luxembourg on the instructions of Armenian-Turkish businessman Lev Aslan Dermen, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Korkmaz then made various investments and bought companies between 2014 and 2018.

Dermen was convicted of several counts of conspiracy and money laundering in March and was allegedly the person who financed SBK Holding’s activities in Turkey with partnering the Kingston Brothers.

The indictment in Turkey seeks the seizure of assets of the suspects if they are convicted.