Police have detained Milas Mayor Fevzi Topuz and his son Doruk Topuz in an investigation into alleged bid-rigging run by the Muğla Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, state news agency Anadolu Agency (AA) reported on Oct. 21. The total number of suspects caught in the case has risen to 35.
Milas is a large agricultural and industrial district in Muğla province on Türkiye’s southwest Aegean coast. It is home to Milas-Bodrum Airport and borders Bodrum, one of the country’s best-known resort areas for foreign visitors and property buyers. Local services in the district were in the news earlier this week when the regional water utility finished a sewer network in Milas and Ören.
Raids across 13 provinces
According to AA, police teams carried out a coordinated operation on Oct. 20 in Muğla and 12 other provinces: Adana, Ankara, Bursa, Elazığ, Hakkari, Istanbul, Gaziantep, Kilis, Kocaeli, Manisa, Van and Ordu. Twenty-nine suspects were taken into custody that day, and the figure later rose to 35 including the mayor and his son.
Officers from the Muğla police department’s smuggling and organised crime branch also searched the Milas Municipality building. The suspects face accusations including forming or joining a criminal organisation, bribery, rigging public tenders, forging official documents and aggravated fraud involving public institutions. Their questioning by police was continuing, AA said. Under Turkish law, suspects are presumed innocent until a court rules otherwise.
Certificates for work that was never done
Investigators allege that 34 companies obtained 35 so-called work-experience certificates for projects that were never actually carried out. In Turkish public procurement, such certificates (iş deneyim belgesi) prove that a firm has completed similar jobs before and are often a condition for bidding on large contracts. The projects listed on the documents had a stated value of about 2.58 billion lira.
The firms holding the certificates then entered 25 public tenders worth a combined 3.71 billion lira, and one of them won a contract, according to the prosecutors’ findings reported by AA.
Investigators also say they found overlapping bank account numbers, tax identification numbers, IBANs and employees among some of the companies. Some shell firms were allegedly sold to third parties at inflated prices, and certain companies are said to have raised their capital by about 342.88 million lira on the strength of the false documents.
Wave of municipal investigations
The Milas case is the latest in a series of corruption probes targeting local governments in Türkiye this year. Earlier this month prosecutors in Ankara detained 25 people, including two deputy mayors, in a separate investigation into Etimesgut Municipality.
For foreign residents and homeowners in the region, municipal services such as zoning, building permits and infrastructure are run by district municipalities like Milas, under the Muğla Metropolitan Municipality. Readers considering a move to the area can find more on local life in our guide to living in Bodrum.
Sources
Photo: Gargarapalvin / CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
