Cevher Özden (1933 – 2 June 2008) was a Turkish

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

and businessman who, in 1981–1982, was at the heart of Turkey's biggest banking scandal. Both he and the chain of events are better known as Banker Kastelli, the name of the company he owned at the time and which took its name from the village near

Sürmene Sürmene (Greek: Σούρμενα, ''Sourmena''; ota, ﺳﻮرﻣﻨﻪ, romanized as ''Sürmena e') is a small town and district of Trabzon Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. In ancient times the town of Hyssus or Hyssos ( grc, Υσσ� ...

, a small town in

Trabzon Trabzon (; Ancient Greek: Tραπεζοῦς (''Trapezous''), Ophitic Pontic Greek: Τραπεζούντα (''Trapezounta''); Georgian: ტრაპიზონი (''Trapizoni'')), historically known as Trebizond in English, is a city on the Bl ...

province, where he was born. The village is now called Baştımar. For more than three decades Cevher Özden had a successful and respected business career as a stock exchange agent in debt instruments. Then, like many others, he was caught up in the turbulence of the new economic climate created by the

monetary reform Monetary reform is any movement or theory that proposes a system of supplying money and financing the economy that is different from the current system. Monetary reformers may advocate any of the following, among other proposals: * A return t ...

s pushed forward by

Turgut Özal Halil Turgut Özal (; 13 October 192717 April 1993) was a Turkish politician, who served as the 8th President of Turkey from 1989 to 1993. He previously served as the 26th Prime Minister of Turkey from 1983 to 1989 as the leader of the Mothe ...

, the Deputy Prime Minister at the time. Özden founded Banker Kastelli in 1980 and became the exclusive marketing agent for ten different banks. Before the end of the year, his business had grown so much that he controlled approximately US$2.5 billion worth of deposits entrusted to him by about 550,000 people. Özden's use of these funds for his own investment operations led to his being put under pressure by the banks and by his customers. New measures on monetary surveillance adopted by the

Central Bank of Turkey The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, CBRT ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası, TCMB, literally "The Turkish Republic Central Bank") is the central bank of Turkey. Its responsibilities include conducting monetary and exchange rate pol ...

in the summer of 1982 caused Özden to flee to Switzerland. One of the consequences of his abrupt disappearance was Özal's dismissal from his post in the cabinet. Özden committed suicide in

Kadıköy Kadıköy (), known in classical antiquity and during the Roman and Byzantine eras as Chalcedon ( gr, Χαλκηδών), is a large, populous, and cosmopolitan district in the Asian side of Istanbul, Turkey, on the northern shore of the Sea of ...

on 2 June 2008.

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