Sweden and Turkey are currently at odds over Sweden’s prospective bid to join the NATO alliance but new revelations suggest that the relationship between the two countries could be strained even further.
Earlier this week, it was revealed that Swedish anti-corruption authorities, along with their American counterparts, were actively investigating allegations that Bilal Erdoğan, the son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, may have been scheduled to profit to the sum of millions of dollars in kickbacks from a Swedish affiliate of a U.S. company.
The allegations were first made public by the news service Reuters on Monday, June 26th, in a report that claimed the kickbacks were only pledged and had not been paid by Dignita Systems AB, a manufacturer of breathalysers that prevent drivers from starting their car if they fail the test.
Allegedly, tens of millions of dollars were pledged to two institutions headed by Bilal Erdoğan, listed as ‘lobbying fees.’ The project was abandoned, however, in September, after the U.S. owner of Dignita Systems AB, 1A Smart Start LLC, learned of the scheme and fired a number of people who had been a part of it.
Dignitas CEO Anders Eriksson refused to comment on the affair, noting that he was subject to a non-disclosure agreement and likewise, investigators in Sweden and the U.S. were also silent on the matter.
Bilal Erdoğan has denied the allegations against him, stating through a lawyer that they were a “web of lies” and were “completely incorrect.”
Since 2017, Dignita Systems AB has attempted to get a foothold for its product in the Turkish market for its breathalyser product but blamed slow going on not being able to reach President Erdoğan.
In 2021, the company managed to get in contact with politician Ifran Gunduz, a friend of Bilal Erdoğan, and representatives of Dignita Systems AB met with Bilal in Istanbul in February of last year.
Part of the strategy discussed between the two parties involved large donations to the foundations chaired by Bilal Erdoğan, suspected of being payments for access to his father.
The allegations of corruption are not a first for Bilal Erdoğan as Russian authorities in 2015 accused him of exporting oil from regions previously controlled by the Islamic State terrorist group, which once controlled large parts of Iraq and Syria.
Erdoğan pushed back against the claims saying, “Above all, Daesh is an enemy of my country, a disgraceful thing, as it puts my religion in a malicious position. They do not represent Islam and I do not even think they are Muslim.”
The Reuters report comes just days after President Erdoğan noted that it was unlikely his country would change its mind about accepting Sweden’s NATO membership bid, slamming Sweden’s new terrorism law for not going far enough to ban demonstrations by supporters of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The allegations against Bilal Erdoğan also echo those levied at Hunter Biden, the son of current U.S. President Joe Biden, who was paid $83,333 per month by the Ukrainian resource firm Burisma, with some claiming he was given the role due to his connections with his father, who was serving as Vice President at the time.
Hunter Biden was recently revealed to have taken a plea deal regarding tax and firearms charges following a years-long investigation that began in 2018 and will likely not face any prison time despite owing around $100,000 in taxes in 2017 and 2018 and lying about his drug use when purchasing a firearm.
