Arda Turan accuses manager of Denizbank AS branch of orchestrating a $44 million Ponzi scheme

A bank manager in Turkey lured prominent footballers into handing over their life savings by promising outsized returns, according to court documents that detail a secretive operation involving bags full of cash changing hands at candy shops and suspicious investors using tracking devices to trace their money.

Players including ex-Barcelona midfielder Arda Turan have accused Secil Erzan, the manager of a Denizbank AS branch, of orchestrating the $44 million ponzi scheme in 2022, according to an indictment filed in an Istanbul court last week.

Lured by the promise of a 250% return on their dollar investments, dozens of investors delivered piles of cash to Erzan. "People who bring me cash come in with a bag," she said in her testimony after being arrested in April. "And they leave with an empty bag."

Denizbank said it was unaware of these transactions until a customer complaint in April. Initial investigations by a prosecutor clearly showed no banking crime was committed, the lender said in a statement.

A lawyer for ex-Inter midfielder Emre Belozoglu, one of the investors in the fund, told Bloomberg that his client had documents with the bank's credentials and should be compensated for his losses.

Erzan, the bank manager, started her "fund" after significant investment losses nearly pushed her into bankruptcy. She called it the "Terim Fund," after former AC Milan coach Fatih Terim who she claimed was an investor in the vehicle backed by Denizbank Chief Executive Officer Hakan Ates.

The lender has said its management had no links to the fund. Terim, who hasn't signed with any team for around a year, couldn't be reached for comment. His wife Fulya Terim, speaking on behalf of the former coach, said "there is an ongoing legal process and we are monitoring it," when she was reached by Bloomberg.

Million-Dollar Losses

"One day I called Arda Turan and told him that there is a fund in which he would invest five and get back 10," Erzan, the jailed bank manager, said. "Turan helped me a lot. He brought money from abroad. He sold his house and brought me money," she was cited as saying in her testimony.

Repeated calls to the office of Tufan Karatas, Turan's lawyer, went unanswered. Turan said on his personal Instagram account that he won't make a statement on the court case.

Turan invested $13.9 million in the fund, which paid out handsome returns to its first few investors. As word spread, others including Belozoglu piled in. Investments grew too fast for Erzan to keep up with repayments, and the scheme unraveled.

"Erzan has evaporated all the money I'd earned over the years," said Turan, who claims to have lost around $7.5 million. Another investor, businessman Atilla Baltas, placed a tracking device in one of the bags of cash he couriered to Erzan. He said his money made its way to another participant in the scheme, who received it as an interest payment.

Denizbank — a local unit of Emirates NBD Bank PJSC — has started an internal audit, according to court documents.

The lender also questioned investors' judgment. Even if they truly believed in a promise of 250% returns, handing over large amounts of cash without any documentation isn't consistent with behavior from a person with "average intelligence," auditors said in a report to the regulator.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Bloomberg, and is published by special syndication arrangement.