Turkey's Fund Scandal Claims Its First Political VictimFormer Minister Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya Resigns Amid Allegations of Billion-Lira Stock Market Gains

Brussels Crow | 4 October 2026

On the morning of 27 September 2026, Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya — former Minister of Family and Social Policies and deputy chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) — announced her resignation on X. She became the first direct political casualty of the massive fund scandal that has been shaking Turkey for two weeks.

Sayan Kaya framed her departure as an act of accountability, stating she "attaches great importance to the allegations being clarified beyond any doubt" and formally requested to be relieved of her duties by President and AKP leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Erdoğan accepted. AKP spokesperson Ömer Çelik said the crisis was being followed "meticulously" within the party. Sayan Kaya was subsequently removed from the AKP executive board's WhatsApp group.

The Allegations

According to claims put forward by the opposition YENİ Party, Sayan Kaya and her husband İlyas Kaya invested 163 million Turkish lira in shares of Özata Denizcilik — a maritime company — in April 2026. Shortly before the fund crisis became public, in September, they are alleged to have withdrawn over 2.2 billion lira from those positions.

YENİ Party spokesperson Zeynel Emre stated that Sayan Kaya invested approximately 63 million lira and withdrew around 1.344 billion lira within roughly four months — a return of at least 21 times her initial investment. Emre characterised the timing of these transactions, executed just before the sharp market decline of 16 September, as clear evidence of insider trading.

A prosecutor ordered an asset freeze on Sayan Kaya and her husband. The former minister declined to address the claims publicly, telling journalists: "I am not available."

How the Crisis Began

The roots of the scandal reach back to 28 August 2026, when Turkey's Capital Markets Board (SPK) issued a directive ordering investment funds to stop concentrating assets in a single stock and to diversify their portfolios. To comply, funds began selling off positions; investors started withdrawing. Some funds then declared they were unable to liquidate their assets quickly enough.

On 17 September, the SPK ordered the liquidation of 131 investment funds managed by seven portfolio management companies, with total assets valued at approximately 15 billion euros. The Turkish government pledged to recover the lost funds and reimburse the 455,000 small investors affected. By 26 September, 51 people had been detained as part of the investigation.

Political Pressure — From Both Sides

When the allegations surfaced, Sayan Kaya faced pressure not only from the opposition but from within her own party. AKP member of parliament Şamil Tayyar publicly called on her to either deny the claims or resign.

The opposition went further. CHP leader Özgür Özel said the scandal had exposed what he called "AKP's dark order." Criminal complaints were filed against Erdoğan and former Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, who dismissed the allegations against him as "baseless."

A Career Ended on Two Fronts

Beyond politics, Sayan Kaya's options appear severely constrained. A graduate of Istanbul University's Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine, she had previously been assigned to a compulsory public service post in Bulanık, in the eastern province of Muş — an obligation she never fulfilled. Under Turkish regulations, that failure bars her from practising medicine at any hospital in the country.

The Brussels Dimension

The scale of the crisis has drawn attention well beyond Turkey's borders. The scandal is estimated to have affected investment funds worth approximately 17 billion dollars, harming close to half a million investors.

For European institutions monitoring Turkey's governance trajectory, the affair raises familiar structural concerns: the independence of market regulators, the capacity to prevent insider trading, and the visibility of politically connected figures in capital markets. These are precisely the criteria that feature in the European Commission's annual assessments of Turkey's alignment with EU standards — assessments that have grown increasingly critical over the past decade.

The Sayan Kaya case is not simply an individual scandal. It is a visible symptom of a structural gap between market oversight and political accountability — a gap that Ankara has long been pressed to close, and that this crisis has placed, once again, in the spotlight.

Sources

• RFI (French and Turkish editions), 27 September 2026

• Diken, 27 September 2026

• Cumhuriyet, 27–29 September 2026

• Sözcü, 4 October 2026

• Tanyeri Haber, 27 September 2026

• Associated Press / Wikipedia, 27 September 2026

• Haber Sol, 27 September 2026

This article is published as part of Brussels Crow's independent journalism coverage of Turkish domestic politics and EU–Turkey relations. All factual claims have been verified against multiple independent sources.