Businesspeople reveal bribery scheme at Istanbul municipality

At the latest hearing in a case that landed former Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu in jail, owners of several companies admitted that they were forced to pay to do business with the municipality outside regulations.

The 81st hearing of the trial, in which Imamoğlu and top municipal bureaucrats are accused of running a criminal gang thriving on bribes and corruption in tenders, was held on Tuesday in Istanbul inside a massive complex that also houses the prison where Imamoğlu is held. The court heard statements from companies doing business with the IBB subsidiaries General Directorate of Culture Inc. and Istanbul Tree and Landscape Inc., two companies specializing in organizing cultural events and landscaping work, respectively. Mete Mağden, owner of a company that was awarded lucrative contracts by the General Directorate of Culture Inc., and Ensar Güney, owner of a company that did business with the Istanbul Tree and Landscape Inc., exposed illicitly awarded tenders, dummy bid schemes and how businesspeople handed out foreign currency in cash to municipal bureaucrats in violation of regulations to win tenders.

Güney admitted in court that he personally handed cash to Istanbul Tree and Landscape Inc. General Manager Ali Sukas at his office to collect his accumulated payments and checks stemming from past business he had done for the subsidiary. Güney said Istanbul Tree and Landscape Inc. Purchasing Manager Ümit Polat came to his nursery in Yalova with a list of companies and told him that Sukas was demanding 10% of the money in return for completed work and outstanding payments.

“He told me that they would ask for 10% of the money. The people above have requested this in return for the payment I sought,” Güney told the court.

Güney said that after this meeting, he went to see Sukas and asked him, “What do you want?” Sukas allegedly replied, “I can’t tell you an amount. You take a look yourself and pay according to your own situation.” Güney said he went to Sukas’ office twice to collect his accumulated receivable of TL 100 million ($2.06 million). He said he personally handed Sukas 35,000 euros ($40,410) during his first visit and $15,000 during his second visit, and was able to collect his checks only after making these payments.

Mete Mağden, meanwhile, testified that he regularly paid a 10% commission to Emrah Bağdatlı, who held no official position at IBB. Bağdatlı is among the fugitive suspects in the case and was once an employee of the municipality’s Istanbul Digital Media Inc. subsidiary. Mağden said that after progress payments were made, he would withdraw the money in cash and hand it over through the accounting department to Bağdatlı’s couriers.

“Every time Emrah Bağdatlı received money from me, he would talk about the existence of a system and say that this money was going into the system. He would tell me, ‘This money doesn’t go into my pocket. There is a system. Everyone working at IBB contributes to this system,’” Mağden said.

The “system” Mağden referred to often came up in the testimonies of witnesses and plaintiffs in the case, in reference to an alleged scheme to funnel bribe cash to a campaign to fund Imamoğlu’s Republican People’s Party (CHP), as well as a campaign for İmamoğlu’s presidential candidacy that was declared after the mayor’s arrest in 2025.

In response to questions from the prosecutor at the hearing, Mağden admitted that the tenders were merely a formality and that the company that would win a tender had been predetermined. He said letterhead and company stamps belonging to his firm had been handed over to an employee of İBB’s Communications Department.

“Under the regulations, other companies had to participate in the tender. Güldem Şık (a suspect in the case) had our documents and letterhead. She prepared all the tender documents herself and sent them to us only for signatures. They pressured me by implying that if I did not agree to submit a dummy bid, they would not pay the TL 5 million they still owed me,” he said.

Mağden also detailed the flow of invoices involved in General Directorate of Culture Inc. tenders, saying that most of the tenders his company won were subsequently directed to other companies designated by IBB’s Communications Department. He said they were instructed to establish a second shell company under the name “Pangram” to avoid problems during audits by the Court of Accounts.

“They wanted us to establish a second company that appeared to have a different owner so that the Court of Accounts would not raise an issue because 45 Tasarım had won the tender. We established the company on the instructions of Murat Ongun that ‘Pangram should handle the events that Ekrem İmamoğlu will attend,’” Mağden said.

Mağden also said his company was contracted to organize events in Izmir and Antalya as part of Imamoğlu’s tours seeking support for his presidential candidacy. He said he spent TL 4 million out of his own pocket on the work, which had no official connection to IBB. Although he was told that he would be paid, Mağden said they could not find anyone to whom they could issue an invoice and that the investigation began without him receiving a single penny.

The corruption investigation into Imamoğlu was completed with a 3,809-page indictment filed on Nov. 11, 2025.

Prosecutors allege that Imamoğlu, identified in the indictment as the leader of a criminal organization, committed offenses including establishing an organization to commit crimes, bribery, money laundering, fraud causing losses to public institutions and organizations, unlawfully recording, obtaining and disseminating personal data, concealing criminal evidence, obstructing communications, damaging public property, accepting bribes, publicly disseminating misleading information, extortion by a public official, laundering assets derived from crime, bid-rigging, intentionally polluting the environment, and violations of Türkiye’s tax procedure, forestry and mining laws.

Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence ranging from 828 years and two months to 2,352 years for Imamoğlu over 142 alleged acts.

DAILYSABAH