Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
A former Turkish Airlines employee, now a naturalized US citizen, has been convicted in New York for orchestrating cryptocurrency-based money laundering schemes on behalf of drug traffickers, exploiting Turkish networks and monetary channels.
The case underscores Turkey’s emergence as a pivotal hub for money laundering operations linked to organized crime and narcotics networks, with their attain extending throughout the Atlantic to US soil.
Mustafa Göklü, 53, who was born and grew up in Turkey, labored for Turkish Airlines in Germany earlier than immigrating to the US. After his arrival, he married long-time lady good friend and present Turkish Airlines employee Tuğba Gündüz Göklü, who nonetheless works within the firm’s code-share division.
Göklü, who adopted the title Michael after acquiring US citizenship in 2014, based a cryptocurrency alternate in New York underneath the company title Mustangy Corp USA. Together with working a limousine service for high-end purchasers and importing items from Turkey for resale, he pursued wealth by cryptocurrency investments, providing alternate providers at charges effectively above the business market to doubtful actors, together with drug traffickers.
Wiretap recordings reveal unlawful cryptocurrency and money transactions between Mustafa Göklü and an undercover DEA agent:
In accordance with federal investigators, he leveraged his firm to launder illicit proceeds for dozens of purchasers, channeling funds by each Turkish and American banks.
The case traces again to July 2018, when the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recognized Göklü after he marketed on LocalBitcoins.com, providing to alternate Bitcoin for money of as much as $99,999.
An spy posing as a drug trafficker responded, rapidly making Göklü the goal of a sting operation. Wiretap and surveillance information point out that Göklü repeatedly met with the agent, exchanging Bitcoin for substantial money sums, whereas the agent explicitly confirmed that the funds had been proceeds from narcotics gross sales, together with oxycodone and Adderall.
He charged a 7–8 p.c fee on every transaction, effectively above customary market charges, and infrequently introduced a money-counting machine to conferences to expedite the exchanges. Göklü utilized a peer-to-peer alternate community that bypassed identification verification necessities comparable to a driver’s license, Social Safety quantity, date of delivery, actual title and proof of tackle in contrast to business platforms comparable to Coinbase
By working on this method, Göklü believed he was concealing his tracks and sustaining the anonymity of his purchasers. Unbeknownst to him, he was the truth is coping with a DEA agent, which in the end uncovered the construction of his enterprise to federal investigators.
Throughout sure conferences, Göklü appeared jittery, consistently trying for automobiles with tinted home windows and even homeless individuals, fearing they could be covert police surveillance. He tried to keep away from Manhattan, cautious of the big community of private and non-private safety cameras.
In a single assembly, he requested how a lot capital can be required to personally revenue from the drug commerce. In one other assembly, he revealed that one in every of his enterprise companions had already been arrested in Manhattan after exchanging $50,000 value of Bitcoin with a drug seller.
Wiretapped conversations revealed that Göklü maintained substantial money deposits in Turkey, leveraging Turkish banks to facilitate cryptocurrency exchanges overseas. He acknowledged that US banks had grown cautious of his frequent transfers, compelling him to undertake evasive techniques whereas retaining a low profile.
By day, Göklü labored as a limousine driver, however his major exercise concerned cryptocurrency exchanges, shifting tens of 1000’s of {dollars} in every transaction. Court docket filings additional revealed that he maintained company ties in Turkey, relied on Turkish financial institution accounts for documentation and had intensive household connections in each Turkey and Germany. These worldwide hyperlinks enabled him to function throughout jurisdictions with relative ease.
Mustafa Göklü included an organization underneath the title Mustangy Corp USA with the New York State authorities:
In April 2019 Göklü was indicted for money laundering and working an unlicensed money transmitting enterprise. A New York jury convicted him in October 2022. He was sentenced in March 2024 to 16 months in jail and launched on March 4, 2025, in keeping with the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Throughout his hearings, Göklü maintained his innocence, denying any involvement in laundering money for drug traffickers, whereas his lawyer argued that cryptocurrency exchanges didn’t require licensing underneath New York state legislation. However, none of those defenses prevented his conviction.
Throughout sentencing, the decide emphasised that the undercover DEA agent constantly instructed Göklü the funds had been drug proceeds. “Definitely the jury had ample purpose to search out that he was willingly and knowingly laundering money and working an unlicensed transmitting enterprise,” the decide stated, noting that Göklü merely “didn’t care.”
Göklü’s case highlights how Turkey’s monetary and company methods are routinely exploited by worldwide criminals, together with drug traffickers. Over the previous decade Turkey has change into a magnet for wished fugitives, who’ve obtained residence and even citizenship whereas conducting unlawful operations.
Critics argue that the Turkish authorities underneath President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, together with its far-right ally, the Nationalist Motion Occasion (MHP), which maintains shut ties to organized crime syndicates, has not solely tolerated such actions but additionally shielded perpetrators from authorized repercussions in alternate for bribes and monetary acquire.
US federal criticism filed towards Mustafa Michael Göklü :
