Turkish mafia boss Peker says Treasury Minister Albayrak is trying to 'destroy him'

Duvar English

Sedat Peker, a Turkish mafia boss who is also a supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has said Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak is trying to “destroy” him and undertaking initiatives to have him arrested.

In a video posted on YouTube on May 8, Peker said that the reason why he currently lives abroad is not for education or business purposes, as he announced before, but because Albayrak, who is also Erdoğan's son-in-law, is trying to “finish him off.”

Peker said that about two years ago, he started to hear rumors from several acquaintances that Albayrak is trying to get him jailed.

Peker said that although he did not believe these rumors initially, he was later shown a criminal file prepared against him, which was not registered in the judiciary system. As the days passed by, the number of people who warned him against Albayrak started to increase, Peker said.

On the day that he left Turkey, his plane was initially not allowed to take off for an hour. Although he did not know about the reason of this one-hour delay at the time, he later found out from a “friend” that Albayrak “instructed” the airport staff not to let him leave the country and get him arrested.

However, once Albayrak was told that the criminal case file was not ready against Peker and there was no legal obstacle for him to leave Turkey, the authorities had no chance but to let him go, according to Peker's acquaintance.

Peker said he heard from his acquaintance that the airport authorities had told Albayrak: “Sir, he [Peker] is going to Montenegro for business purposes every week any way; he will go but come back.”

“[Once I heard this incident] Everything in my mind became crystal clear. Mr. Berat surely wants to destroy me,” Peker said in the video.

Peker has been twice convicted in Turkey of crimes including the leadership of a crime organization.

Peker is known for threatening Erdoğan’s political rivals, particularly with his threat of “I will shower with their blood” issued against the 1128 academics who signed an anti-war petition against the rights violations in Kurdish provinces in 2016.