Corruption and the Real Estate Mafia
A couple of years ago, a young professional woman I met told me the story of how her family lost a parcel of land overlooking the Bosphorus on the Asian side that had been in her family for generations. Men with guns came and threatened to harm them if her father didn’t sign the property over to them. The family went to the police who told them that this was a mafia matter and they could do nothing about it. The police suggested that they hire a rival mafia to protect themselves. After some demonstrations of violence on the part of the men who wanted their property, the family signed it over, receiving no compensation. But because the document shows a “legal sale”, they have no recourse in court. The property is gone.
I have heard of a number of similar cases where either police or municipal officials did nothing to protect the property owner or were even part of the scam themselves. This has been going on for years.
Apparently one of these gangs has now been arrested, along with a corrupt official. They preyed on elderly non-Muslim property owners on the Asian side of Istanbul, kidnapping their children and threatening to kill them if the property wasn’t signed over. If the family resisted, the child would be killed. Corrupt doctors were on hand to sign off on ‘death by natural causes’. But even if the family signed over the property, they would still be killed — the witness to the crime would simply ‘disappear’. (click here for article)
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