The Turkish president’s son-in-law, Berat Albayrak apparently decided to play his hand openly with no fear of running afoul of the authorities in his illegal schemes.
According to Nordic Monitor, Albayrak brought his operative Muhassıloğlu back from the shadows to run front company Powertrans, which has long been accused of transporting illicit oil from areas administered by the local Kurdistan government as well the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), when the jihadist group controlled oilfields.
Muhassıloğlu was one of the main partners in Powertrans, holding a 50 percent share when it was first established on March 25, 2011 in Istanbul with start-up capital of 50,000 Turkish lira ($32,150), according to trade registry data.
The company was left idle for four months until then-Prime Minister and now President Erdoğan secured a cabinet decision No.2011/2033 on July 18, 2011 that required licensing for the transport of crude oil and jet fuel through Turkey by truck and train.
More activity was recorded in Powertrans after the cabinet decision, which effectively handed a lucrative business venture with no competition to a brand new company that had no experience and no record in the oil business.
In 2012 Muhassıloğlu moved into the shadows, leaving the company to other caretakers who ran Powertrans on behalf of Albayrak and Erdoğan
Everything was in place before the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) move in October 2012 to sell its oil in the international market in independent export deals in defiance of Baghdad.
Erdoğan helped the KRG use Turkish territory to do this business in exchange for the KRG favoring Powertrans. It was a pure abuse of power by Erdoğan to enrich his family through illicit and backroom deals.
The Kurdish oil was trucked to Turkey and then shipped from Turkish ports on the Mediterranean. Another $10 million oil purchase in the same month was made by Vitol, another major trading house that picked up the oil from Turkey’s Toros terminal.
Baghdad was not happy, however. The Iraqi federal government was furious at the KRG’s move and complained about Turkey’s facilitation of the Kurdish oil sales, describing it as stealing from Iraq’s treasury. The Erdoğan government paid no attention to the criticism, while the family enterprise pocketed substantial revenue from the Kurdish oil sales.
It was reported that some of the oil transported by Powertrans did not make it to the port for re-export but rather was illegally sold to the domestic Turkish market. The allegations were investigated by Customs and Commerce Ministry inspectors, but it was eventually hushed up.
The allegations that Powertrans was involved in the smuggling of ISIS oil from Syria were also not investigated under pressure from the Erdoğan government.
The reappearance of Muhassıloğlu suggested that Albayrak and his father-in-law, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, felt confident enough in their quest of further consolidate their power after a massive purge of senior government officials from the judiciary, military, intelligence and police in 2016 and 2017.
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