Ali Yesildag, the brother of Hasan Yesildag, a trusted confidant of Erdogan’s family, has released his second video in which he exposes corruption within Erdogan’s inner circle. Investigative journalist Cevheri Guven has released both videos. In the first video, Yesildag alleged that Erdogan and his associates illegally cleared one billion dollars from a public procurement tender for the management of Antalya Airport.
In the second video, Yesildag alleges that Mehmet Mehdi Eker, former Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock of Turkey between 2005-2015, was involved in a corruption scheme related to the public procurement tenders of his ministry during his tenure in 2009 and onwards. Yesildag claims that Eker formed a partnership with him and his associates to fraudulently win a $3.5 billion public tender for the management and betterment of agricultural lands across the country. Yesildag claims that Eker knew the tender was going to be opened and looked for a partner who would be his business partner on a 50-50 basis. Yesildag alleges that he agreed to form the fraudulent scheme under the patronage of the Minister.
Yesildag describes himself as a ‘golden boy’ for these officials due to his experience in corruption schemes and previous tender frauds. Yesildag claims that other partners in the scheme were not experienced in this type of high-level corruptions. He also alleges that their corruption scheme was not limited to agricultural lands but live stocks, fertilizers, and more.
According to Yesildag, these officials have a mindset that prioritizes their pockets over affordable food and meat for the public. Yesildag claims that most of the tenders and policies under the Minister of Food, Agriculture and Livestock were developed and opened to enrich Erdogan’s close associates but not to improve the country’s agriculture and serve the people affordable food.
Yesildag also alleges that Erdogan fired Mehdi Eker from the ministry post after seeing the potential of the large corruption scheme in the ministry and put his own puppet as minister to let the money flow directly to himself from the corruption schemes. Yesildag claims that all these projects were deliberately left incomplete over the years to continue the money flow into their pockets.
Yesildag promised to disclose more scandalous corruption cases involving Erdogan and his close associates in his second video released today, and the public awaits the release of his third video.
