Turkish Villa Scam Action Group Press Release 1

Around 80 families most of them from Northern Ireland have found themselves caught up in a multi million pound Turkish villa scam where villas they thought they had bought turned out not to be theirs when many were given fake deeds. The scam is currently being investigated by the PSNI in Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile in Turkey, the criminal trial of Kevin O’Kane from Bellaghy along with his Turkish business partners Kubilay Atmaca & Hande Bakkal is currently underway. Dubbed by the Turkish press as The biggest housing con in Turkey all three are charged with serious fraud & issuing false deeds. Altinkum Didim Today News Reported

Around 80 families most of them from Northern Ireland have found themselves caught up in a multi million pound Turkish villa scam where villas they thought they had bought turned out not to be theirs when many were given fake deeds. The scam is currently being investigated by the PSNI in Northern Ireland. Meanwhile in Turkey, the criminal trial of Kevin O’Kane from Bellaghy along with his Turkish business partners Kubilay Atmaca & Hande Bakkal is currently underway.

Dubbed by the Turkish press as The biggest housing con in Turkey all three are charged with serious fraud & issuing false deedsKevin O’Kane is not expected to attend the trial as he left Turkey illegally in November 2007. The Turkish have issued a warrant for his extradition. Kevin O’Kane blames his Turkish business partner & the Turkish partner blames O’Kane.

Victims caught up in this nightmare Villa Scam have come together & formed the Turkish Villa Scam Action Group (TVSAG). Spokesperson for the group said: We feel that there has been a need for all the victims to come together & fight for our money & fight for justice as a group. Being a victim of crime is a lonely place. Most of us are struggling to cope both financially & mentally with the devastation this has caused to our lives.

The group is there to lend support & to come together to lobby government agencies & public bodies to ensure we get a fair & just trial with evidence from both jurisdictions.

We cannot afford for our case to be left gathering dust on a shelf. We ask everyone involved in the case both in Northern Ireland & Turkey to work together for the sake of the victims. Many of the victims are ensioners, some old age pensioners & this is their life savings at stake. Some are young families with young children who bought the property as a future investment.. Some people are paying around £500 per month in a mortgage for a house they will never own & they need to keep paying this for the next 25 years. Some bought this as a their retirement home. All of our dreams are over.

This is fraud on a massive scale affecting hundreds of people. It is not just the person who has been scammed that is affected, their children are affected, their parents are affected & wider family circles are affected.The impact has been devastating.

We will never give up the fight to get our hard earned money back. Some of our group are preparing to travel to London to discuss our case at the highest political levels while some others are flying back to Turkey for the next Criminal Court Hearing in early July. We have also made contact with our MP’s & MLA’s in Northern Ireland & with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Turkey.

This could happen to anyone, there are plenty of conmen around. We have set up a petition to the Prime Minister to help us open up legal channels between the UK & Turkey & would ask for help in increasing our numbers. Please sign our petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/VillaScam/ 28/06.08

This articles has been taken from Altinkum Didim Today News with permission http://www.didimtoday.com

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Category: National