Interior Minister Soylu, son found new insurance company

Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and his son Levent Soylu co-founded a new insurance company in January with a founding capital of 100,000 Turkish Liras, ANKA news agency has reported.

Tuesday June 08 2021 12:09 am

Duvar English

It has come out to light that Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and his son Levent Soylu on Jan. 18 co-founded a company that sells insurance policies to people online.

The company named “Esigortan Insurance Agency Services” had a founding capital of 100,000 Turkish Liras, ANKA news agency reported on June 7.

This is the second insurance company that the Soylu family owns. The first was established in 1996 under the name “Engin Insurance and Mediation Services.”

In his ninth YouTube video, mafia leader Sedat Peker had said that Soylu's initial insurance company grew over 5,000 percent since he aligned himself with the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

“It seems your company grew 5,700 percent. It grew 57 times. You own all the holdings,” Peker had said on June 6.

Peker had also previously claimed that Turkish Airlines (THY) – owned by Turkey’s Sovereign Wealth Fund that is chaired by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – had been buying its insurance services from Soylu's company.

In response, Engin Insurance and Mediation Services had released a statement denying the allegations.

Peker, a pan-Turkist and Turanist organized crime boss who fled Turkey in early 2020 to avoid prosecution, has been releasing videos for the past month that include serious allegations, including murders, against current and former politicians in a bid to take revenge for the operations launched into his organization.

Although mostly infuriated due to being sidelined, Peker, an ally-turned-foe of the government, repeatedly says he releases the videos as a reaction against police officers raiding his house and pointing guns towards his wife and little daughters.

Peker's claims against current and former politicians, with the main ones being former minister Mehmet Ağar and Soylu, have been shaking Turkey, but the government's response to the accusations has been weak so far.

In the videos watched by millions of people, Peker repeatedly says that he supported the AKP and more specifically Soylu in order for them to obtain political gains. He also says that he was promised a return to Turkey in April and that he was betrayed by Soylu.