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The chairman of a sugar refinery arrested on Tuesday as part of corruption investigations has been living a life of luxury and had been linked to suspects in the Ergenekon case — a clandestine organization accused of plotting to overthrow the government — according to reports from auditors at two ministries. His detention and potential arrest signals that this opulent lifestyle may soon come to an end.
The investigation launched by the Specially Authorized Ankara Prosecutor’s Office into three sugar refineries, based on allegations of corruption at these facilities, is currently under way with police operations and detentions continuing. Twenty-seven people have been detained thus far, including Cuma Karataş, the deputy general director of Kayseri Şeker Fabrikası (Kayseri Sugar Refinery). Seven people were detained in Kayseri in the early hours of Tuesday morning, while three sugar beet buyers were detained in Sivas later the same day.
All individuals detained so far will be taken to Ankara where they will be required testify to the prosecutor. Kayseri Şeker Fabrikası is one of Turkey’s biggest sugar refineries and is collectively owned in partnership by 80,000 farmers.
Vedat Ali Özışık, the chairman of the factory’s executive board for the past seven years, was also taken in for questioning at the Kayseri Police Department’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Department on Tuesday evening. The corruption allegations raised against him are the result of several reports by auditors from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The allegations against Özışık include extensive claims of nepotism. The reports indicate that he hired 81 relatives and close friends for various positions at the factory. They also revealed that despite appearing to earn an income of only TL 2,000 lira per month, he lives a highly opulent lifestyle, owns a Mercedes S500, and his son, Burhan Özışık, drives a BMW X6. The reports also state that Özışık rented, on behalf of the company, a villa on the Bosporus owned by famous architect Ahmet Vefik Alp and was using this residential building as an office.
Özışık and other members on the board frequently went abroad and even billed their personal shopping to the organization. Özışık billed the company 70,000 euros for a trip to Dubai. According to the 300-page report from the Industry and Trade Ministry, the cost of these trips to the company could be expressed in millions of euro annually. The company’s annual accommodation and hotel spending is around TL 10 million. In addition to his Mercedes, Özışık also owns a Ferrari. The reports also note that the Kayseri Beetroot Cooperative — headed by Özışık — owns, among many others, Panpet Petrol and Transport, Pandoğa-Seramis Vegetable Greenhouse, İncesu Dairy Production Facility and a Gaziantep Cookie Factory.
Another point that stood out in the report was the payments made to lawyer Olcayto Özhan. Kayseri Şeker hired Özhan in 2003 in a case regarding a land dispute. In 2007, the factory won the court case. Özhan was paid a total of TL 1.76 million during the trial in lawyer’s fees. However, after this payment, the executive board of Kayseri Şeker’s decided unanimously to pay Özhan a second time. The amount of this second payment was TL 25 million, bringing the total paid to Özhan to TL 26.76 million.
Özhan had previously been in the public spotlight for defending Col. Cemal Temizöz, known as the “death well colonel,” in a trial in Diyarbakır over the deaths of 20 people in southeastern Turkey in the late ‘90s.