Turkey: Inflow of dollars of unknown origin

The issue of billions of anonymous dollars entering Turkey, intended to save the economy in free fall, during which the opposition raised many controversies and issued many criticisms against the government.

Erhan Usta, vice president of the opposition Good Party in Turkey, asked the government about the source of the $19.7 billion that entered Turkey last December, anonymously, after data from the Central Bank of Turkey.

Usta said: “Last November, $4.5 billion flowed into Turkey, while in December, $19.7 billion flowed from an unknown source, wondering about the origin and owner of these funds”.

This comes after the announcement of the introduction of the guaranteed deposit system at the exchange rate on 20 December in order to stop the rapid increase in the exchange rate, in December, the dollar fell from 18 Turkish lira to 11 Turkish lira. Following this decision by President Erdogan, it was announced that the central bank sold about $10 billion to the market through the back door.

It subsequently spread that the foreign currency fire was extinguished by the introduction of foreign currencies of unknown origin into the market other than the foreign currency sold by the central bank, while the government extended the period of “asset peace” for a further six months until December, so the source of funds brought from abroad is not questioned.

Official data revealed that about 4.462 billion dollars of unknown origin entered Turkey last November. According to the Turkish Central Bank last October, the volume of funds of unknown source entered Turkey about 3.277 billion dollars.

Data from the Turkish Central Bank showed that the current account deficit decreased by $866 million during the month of November from the same month of the previous year to a deficit of $2.681 billion.