Two Turkish brothers defraud bank of $1 bln

Two brothers in the Black Sea province of Samsun in Turkey have been detained after living high off the hog for a short period following embezzlement of some 16 billion Turkish Liras ($1 billion).

According to a police investigation, Recep Gezek and his elder brother, Emre Gezek, who were working in a gas station, were using the same account they had opened at a private bank.

One day, Emre Gezek found a leak in the bank’s digital system and transferred 16 billion liras from a bank’s investment account to their account by making some 70 transactions.

“There was no money in our account. I looked at the capital account. There was a ‘withdraw money’ button. With my every click, new amounts of money got transferred to our account,” the elder brother confessed in his first testimony. “Then we saw there were some 16 billion in our account.”

The first thing the brothers did was buy two brand-new mobile phones for themselves. The second was transferring “some hundred thousands” to buy a new luxury car.

According to the police file, the brothers then started clearing the debts of their family members.

“We also spread the news to people in the surrounding areas to visit us if they had any debts,” the elder brother said. The amount of the debts cleaned is unknown.

But, the younger brother said they were not “malevolent.”

“If we were evil-minded, my brother and I would leave the country with the money. But we did not,” he noted.

Carrying a step further, his elder brother said they did not “con anybody” and accused the bank of “not blocking their account.”

“We were going to donate the money to the state,” he added.