The Central Bank (CBCG) confirmed to "Vijesta" that the Turkish Zeren Group withdrew its request to establish a bank in Montenegro.
The owner of Zeren Group is a businessman close to the Turkish president's family Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mustafa Jigit Zeren, who, according to the media in Turkey and Europe, participated in a dubious scheme to avoid sanctions on the export of Russian oil, and the collection of that export, and in the process allegedly defrauded Russian partners.
The Moscow bank allegedly gave a loan to the Zeren-related company Mosttrade, which was supposed to repay with money from the end users of Russian oil in India and China, which was transported by another of Zeren's companies. This worked at first, but problems arose when Turkish state banks stopped crediting the transactions, due to threats of US sanctions. Zeren allegedly tried to buy his bank in Turkey, but that too failed.
In the meantime, his company, instead of repaying the loan to the Russian bank, allegedly directed the money to its companies and to business expansion, allegedly defrauding the creditor of hundreds of millions of euros. The representative of the Russian bank filed several lawsuits in Russia, Turkey and before international arbitrations, as well as criminal charges.
The media also write that an armed raid on the premises of Zeren's company in Istanbul was organized from Russia, when his father, a member of the board, had to sign a receipt for the debt, which is why Zeren is allegedly hiding it, because his life is in danger. The media write that the job was actually organized by Erdogan's family and that Zeren was the executor.
The Zeren Group announced in July that it was not aware of any criminal investigations in Turkey and that Zeren had no travel ban or other sanctions. The group claimed that it had nothing to do with the company Mosttrade.
The Zeren Group submitted the application for the establishment of the bank to the Central Bank on March 15 this year, while the legal deadline for the decision of the CBCG expired on October 15.
"The Central Bank acts in accordance with the law in all procedures for issuing work permits, including in the procedure with the Zeren Group. "Before the expiration of the statutory deadline for deciding on the request in question, the Zeren Group on its own initiative withdrew the request," the director of the Directorate for Licensing, Approvals, Measures and Compliance Assessment at the CBCG told "Vijesta" Nikola Bašanović.
"Vijesti" asked - what are the reasons why, according to unofficial information, the CBCG, at a meeting with representatives of the Zeren Group, asked them to withdraw the application for the establishment of a bank in Montenegro, since the Zeren Group, according to "Vijesti" unofficial information, announced that it would not withdraw request, and what are the next moves of the CBCG regarding this issue, since the deadline for a decision regarding the request expires on October 15.
A delegation of the Zeren Group, led by its owner In December, Mustafa Jigit Zeren spoke with the governor of the CBCG Irene Radović. Zeren then, according to the press release from the meeting, expressed his intention for the Turkish business group to expand its operations in Montenegro to the banking sector as well.
The ambassador of Turkey was also in the delegation Baris Kalkavan, who then announced the continuation of the economic cooperation between the Republic of Turkey and Montenegro and indicated that the share of investments from Turkey in the total investments in the previous period increased by 120 million euros, of which only the investments of the Zeren Group accounted for 80 million.
Zeren Group is a private company that, as it was announced at the time, "has been successfully operating in Turkey and six other countries for 50 years, in eight different sectors (finance, construction, IT, energy...), with an annual holding turnover of more than five billion dollars".
Zaren has opened three companies in Montenegro in the past two years.
"Zeren Group Investment" was founded in July 2020, deals in trade, has six employees, last year had an income of 4,2 million euros and a profit of 852 thousand euros.
"Zeren Motors" was founded in February of last year for the trade of cars, employs five workers, last year had an income of 463 thousand euros and a loss of 208 thousand euros.
"Zeren Food" was registered as a restaurant in July 2022, and until yesterday it had not published a financial report on its operations.
The director of all three companies is Mustafa Jigit Zeren.
There are now 11 banks operating in Montenegro. The first Turkish bank in Montenegro, Ziraat bank, opened a branch office in 2015. It operates under the ownership of the state investment fund "Türkiye Wealth Fund".
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