A court in Istanbul on Friday ordered the arrest of Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, a former minister and deputy chair of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP, over her alleged role in a major stock market financial fraud.
The Istanbul Prosecutor’s Office accused Kaya of “being a member of an organised crime group and violating stock market law”.
Her husband, Ilyas Kaya, and a former chair of the Capital Markets Board, Ibrahim Omer Gonul, were given a travel ban but not arrested.
Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya, who was family and social policies minister from 2016 to 2018, resigned in September as a deputy chair of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AKP after allegations emerged about share transactions by her and her husband.
She is accused of illegally profiting through share-price manipulation after she received 2.17 billion Turkish lira (about 38.4 million euros) after reportedly investing 163 million lira (about 2.7 million euros) in an investment fund.
The couple deny wrongdoing. They have transferred some of the profits to an account designated by the banking regulators.
The AKP and the government welcomed the arrest order as proof of their good governance.
“We move forward by renewing ourselves! We are constantly reborn. We part ways with those who do wrong and those who succumb to their own desires, and we continue on our path stronger than before,” Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek wrote on X after Sayan Kaya’s arrest on Friday.
The investigation has already resulted in more than 100 detentions while Turkey’s Capital Markets Board has ordered the liquidation of 131 investment funds managed by seven portfolio management companies.
According to Reuters, the funds’ assets are worth around 18.8 billion euros, involving about 353,000 investors. A Turkish television channel put the total number of investors at more than 514,000.
Kaya comes from a family with experience of public office. Her brother, Omer Fatih Sayan, a former telecommunications regulator chief and deputy transport minister, was appointed to the Energy Market Regulatory Board in July.
Her sister, Ayse Hilal Sayan Koytak, previously ambassador to Kuwait and Bahrain, was appointed ambassador to Finland in September. Another sister, Nazmiye Sumeyye Sayan, previously served on Istanbul’s municipal council.
