Contractor in Esenyurt: I gave 9 million lira in bribes in the office

Suspect contractor Halil Yılmaz, questioned as part of the Istanbul Public Prosecutor's Office's tender investigation into Esenyurt Municipality, stated that Deputy Mayor Yusuf Ulutaş demanded a total of 9 million lira from him. Yılmaz said he purchased dollars from an exchange office and delivered this amount to Ulutaş's office on two different dates.

Another suspect, Orhan Yıldırım, stated that he handed over a total of 300–400 thousand dollars to Ulutaş on three or four separate occasions in the same office, and most recently gave 100 thousand dollars directly to Ulutaş at the end of September.

The investigation began on October 7 with the detention of 19 people; nine of them, including Ulutaş, were arrested today. Esenyurt Municipality has been under trustee administration since November 2024; the trial of former Mayor Ahmet Özer, who was arrested in a terrorism investigation that began in that period, is still ongoing. Statement records obtained by Sabah Newspaper are concretizing the financial scale of the new investigation for the first time.