Cevher Özden

Abidin Cevher Özden, (b. 1933 in Trabzon, Turkey - d. 2 June 2008 in İstanbul) was a Turkish banker and businessman who, in 1981-1982, was at the origin of Turkey's biggest banking scandal. Both he and the chain of events during the scandal are better known under the name of his company at the time, Banker Kastelli, referring to the village near Sürmene, a town of Trabzon, where he was born. The current name of this village is Baştımar and was now Mahno, which was derived from Mah-i New (New Moon in Persian)[1]

Cevher Özden led a successful and respected business life as a stock exchange agent in debt instruments for more than three decades, until he was caught, as many others, in the turbulence of the new economic climate created by the monetary reforms pushed forward by Turgut Özal, who was Deputy Prime Minister at the time.[2] He founded the company Banker Kastelli in 1980 and became the exclusive marketing agent for ten different banks. Before the end of the year, his business reached a scope where he controlled approximately 2.5 billion US dollars worth of deposits entrusted by about 550,000 people. Özden's use of these funds for his own investment operations led to his being put under pressure, both by the banks and his customers. New measures on monetary surveillance adopted by the Central Bank of Turkey in the summer of 1982 caused Özden to flee in panic to Switzerland. One of the direct consequences of his abrupt disappearance from the market was Özal's dismissal from his post in the cabinet. Özden committed suicide on 2 June 2008.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-01-05. Retrieved 2009-07-22.
  2. ↑ David O. Beim (2001). "What triggers a systemic banking crisis?". Columbia University.
  3. ↑ Today's Zaman: CEO of Banker Kastelli commits suicide

Further reading

  • Izak Atiyas (1989). "Working Paper 167: The private sector's response to financial liberalization in Turkey". The World Bank.
  • Douglas Arthur Howard (2001). The history of Turkey ISBN 0-313-30708-3. London: Greenwood Publishing Group. templatestyles stripmarker in |title= at position 23 (help)
  • R.T. Naylor (2004). "Parables of peculiar talents". Hot money and the politics of debt. London: McGill-Queen's Press. p. 101. ISBN 0-7735-2743-5.
  • Erik Jan Zürcher (1994). Turkey: A modern history. London: Diane Publishing. ISBN 0-7881-6497-X.
  • Andrew Mango (2004). The Turks today. The Overlook Press. ISBN 1-58567-756-6.
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