More names to come up in BTR investigation

The beginning of next year could bring new revelations in the case of Banca Turco-Romana (Turkish-Romanian Bank), with the list of those guilty for its bankruptcy including “big names”, banking sources say. The end of last week saw seven warrants issued for the arrest of BTR administrators, all of them Turkish citizens, who are now on an APB in Romania and abroad.
“January 21 is the deadline by which the final report on all those guilty of BTR’s collapse has to be presented. Besides the management of the bank, the other people involved include high-ranking natural persons. If the names are revealed, this could surely ruffle a few feathers,” the quoted sources said. The BTR affair had been somewhat forgotten until the end of last week. Most people thought this case would just be buried and forever forgotten as many others had been before it. To the financial market’s surprise, the Prosecutor of Romania, Tanase Joita announced that those who had had something to do with the administration of the bank had been put on an APB. This is the first case when arrest warrants are issued for the entire top management of a bank and for its owner. The most interesting thing, however, is that the list includes even the owner of Bayindir, Kamuram Cortuk, who used to be a well-known and influential investor, with quite a leverage in the Romanian business and political environments.
Besides Cortuk, the Romanian prosecutors are looking for the following people in the over $50 million fraud case: Mehmet Fahim Tobur – former BTR president (he ran the Bucharest Mall before moving to BTR), Koray Tulgar – former vice-president, Mustafa Kemal Ercelik – former vice-president, Levent Huseyin Yurukoglu – former BTR president (the founder of the bank), Figen Yakinkaya Cetin – former vice-chairperson of the bank’s Board of Directors, as well as Koncavar Murat. Koncavar Murat has already been arrested in Bulgaria last Thursday and is to be extradited to Romania, according to the latest news.