Turkey arrests Tera chairman in multi-billion dollar fund scandal

Turkish authorities have arrested Emre Tezmen, chairman of the brokerage firm Tera Yatirim Menkul Degerler AS, as part of a major investigation into an investment fund scandal. The probe follows the disappearance of billions of dollars in investor funds, affecting hundreds of thousands of retail investors.

Tezmen was arrested alongside board members Kerem Alkın and Emre Alkın, as well as executive Alpér Öztürk. Additionally, Serdar Turhan, chairman of Pusula Finans Holding AS, has also been taken into custody. The investigation focuses on funds that concentrated investments in low-liquidity, thinly traded stocks, which allowed for rapid and artificial price fluctuations.

Financial experts and the Turkish Justice Minister have characterized the mechanism as a ‘Ponzi-type’ scheme, where funds were allegedly used to secure short-term loans and then reinvested into the same stocks to drive prices up. Authorities have frozen assets linked to several financial executives and are investigating potential transfers of money and cryptocurrency abroad to determine if assets were moved out of Turkey.