Borajet, the owners of which have been on the run accused of belonging to a secretive Islamist group, goes bankrupt on Wednesday, Airport Haber reported.
The enforcement office in Istanbul announced the official bankruptcy of Borajet after its debt restructuring process failed.
The partners in the company, businessman İbrahim Faruk Bayındır, and lawyer Halil İbrahim Koca entered Turkey’s aviation sector as a private shuttle service in 2008 with the purchase of a $58-million Bombardier Global Express business jet.
But the airline saw a dramatic growth when the partners got into business with Yalçın Ayaslı, a Turkish-American businessman and electrical engineer, whose investment turned Borajet into a regional airline in 2010.
Bayındır and Koca became fugitives after being accused of belonging to the Gülen movement, which Turkey accuses of masterminding 2016’s failed coup attempt. And, Turkish newspapers also labeled Ayaslı a member of the movement.
In an effort to part his ways with Borajet, Ayaslı sold the company to the businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, a man known for his close links to the Turkish president. Korkmaz’s name hit international headlines last year when he was linked to the Kingston brothers, Utah businessmen described in the U.S. press as a “Mormon crime family”, currently on trial in the United States for running a billion-dollar fraud scheme through their energy company Washakie Renewable.
Ayaslı, this year brought Federal racketeering charges against Korkmaz, accusing Korkmaz of targeting Borajet with a campaign to devalue it before pressuring him to sell the airline at a deflated cost.
Ayaslı says the media campaign was accompanied by threats and harassment by Korkmaz, who he alleges sent threatening messages to him and his employees.
Korkmaz denies the allegations against him and has launched his own lawsuit against Ayaslı in Turkey, alleging that the debt and expenses accrued by Borajet were higher than revealed during the sale.
