Another indictment against infamous Turkish tycoon revealed in US

Two separate indictments were prepared against Turkish tycoon Sezgin Baran Korkmaz in the United States, Voice of America's Turkish service reported. The newly-reported indictment was prepared 27 days prior to the previously revealed one.

Monday June 28 2021 10:40 am

This file photo shows Korkmaz with former CIA director James Woolsey.

Duvar English

Two separate indictments were prepared against infamous Turkish businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz in the United States, Voice of America's Turkish service reported on June 27.

In the initial indictment prepared for the case in Utah District Court against Korkmaz, who was arrested in Austria on June 19 upon the request of the U.S., prosecutors sought up to 25 years in prison over two separate accusations.

In the second indictment that was filed 27 days later, Korkmaz faces 225 years in prison on three separate accusations.

A confidential document in the court case showed that an arrest warrant was issued for the shady tycoon on March 10.

The first indictment consisting of 11 pages, on which a confidentiality order was imposed, was conveyed to Judge Tena Campbell on March 31. She was then appointed as the case's judge.

The indictment that sought up to 25 years in prison for Korkmaz entered the court case on April 1. The businessman is accused of conspiring to commit money laundering and obstruction of an official proceeding in a statement he gave as a witness to U.S. prosecutors in the case of the Kingston Brothers.

Campbell on April 7 recused herself on the grounds that the indictment overlaps with the Kingston brothers' indictment and that the same judge should look into the case. U.S. District Judge Jill Parrish then took over the case.

Following the assignment of Parrish to the case, the prosecutor's office on April 28 put a second indictment consisting of 15 pages in the case into Korkmaz. The second indictment includes the former accusations, as well as 10 counts of wire fraud.

Legal experts told Voice of America's Turkish service that significant evidence may have been gathered in the 27 days between the first and second indictments.

While the first indictment doesn't include text messages sent from a witness referred to as "grandpa" to Jacob Kingston, the second one has the transcript.

US seeks Korkmaz's extradition

The U.S. Justice Department on June 21 said that it will seek to extradite Korkmaz from Austria so that he can face the money laundering charges in Utah.

According to the indictment, Korkmaz laundered over $133 million in fraud proceeds through bank accounts that he controlled in Turkey and Luxembourg. The proceeds allegedly related to a scheme by Jacob Kingston, Isaiah Kingston, and Levon Termendzhyan to defraud the U.S. Treasury by filing false claims for over $1 billion in refundable renewable fuel tax credits for the production and sale of biodiesel by their company, Washakie Renewable Energy LLC, in Plymouth, Utah.

Korkmaz and his co-conspirators allegedly used proceeds from the fraud to acquire the Turkish airline Borajet, hotels in Turkey and Switzerland, a yacht named the Queen Anne, and a villa and apartment on the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul.

Korkmaz devised a scheme to defraud Kingston Brothers by falsely representing that he could provide them with protection, through unnamed government officials, from a federal grand jury investigation and civil lawsuits, the U.S. Justice Department said.

The businessman is also being investigated by Turkey, where prosecutors in December detained 10 executives working at Korkmaz's companies after Turkey's Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) said the companies were used for money laundering.

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

The money laundered in question is reportedly part of a decade-long scheme to defraud the U.S. of at least $500 million.