{"id":307399,"date":"2024-01-21T10:14:58","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T16:14:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=307399"},"modified":"2024-01-22T12:43:57","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T18:43:57","slug":"turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish Gangster Gets Life for Murder of Cypriot Casino Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Turkish gangster has been given two life sentences after an Istanbul court found him guilty of premeditated murder. The trial was in relation to the 2022 shooting death<\/a> of Northern Cyprus casino owner Halil Falyal\u0131.<\/p>\n

\"Halil
Halil Falyal\u0131, above left, was shot to death in Northern Cyprus in February 2022. On Friday, a court in Istanbul determined that Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez, top right, was the man who pulled the trigger. (Image: Gazete Oksijen)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez<\/a> was also convicted of \u201cforming and leading a criminal organization.\u201d His brother, Mehmet Faysal S\u00f6ylemez, also an alleged underworld figure, was cleared of the same charges.<\/p>\n

Three other defendants, Abdurrahim \u00c7elik, Cengiz \u015eener, and Ender Y\u0131ld\u0131z, were each sentenced to 25 years in prison for \u201cassisting in premeditated murder\u201d and \u201cmembership in a criminal organization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deadly Ambush<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Falyal\u0131 died in a hail of bullets in February 2022, after his motorcade was ambushed by men with Kalashnikovs in the village of \u00c7atalk\u00f6y, Northern Cyprus. His driver, Murat Demirta\u015f, was also killed in the attack. The murders were witnessed by Falyal\u0131\u2019s wife and children, who were traveling in a different vehicle and were unhurt.<\/p>\n

Falyal\u0131 owned the five-star Les Ambassadeurs Hotel & Casino in Northern Cyprus and was a big shot in the local online gambling industry.<\/p>\n

\n

In 2015, the U.S. government accused Falyal\u0131 of being part of a drug trafficking operation that flooded the UK with heroin. A year later, the DOJ charged him with laundering the proceeds of narcotics sales within the U.S. <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

He never faced justice because neither the U.S. nor the UK have an extradition treaty with Northern Cyprus, a de facto state recognized only by Turkey.<\/p>\n

Prior to his killing, Falyal\u0131 had been named by Turkish Mafia figure Sedat Peker as a vital cog in an international cocaine trafficking operation with links to prominent Turkish politicians. Peker claimed vast quantities of the drug were shipped to Turkey from Venezuela, and then to the Middle East, and the profits were laundered by Falyal\u0131 in his casinos.<\/p>\n

\u2018Obscene Tapes\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Peker also claimed that Falyal\u0131 enjoyed power and influence because he held \u201cobscene tapes,\u201d featuring various politicians who had been secretly filmed while they were staying at his hotel.<\/p>\n

Peker is currently in exile in the United Arab Emirates, where he has detailed the alleged engagement of government figures in illegal \u201cDeep State\u201d activities through a series of YouTube videos.<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, the S\u00f6ylemez brothers fought a brutal war for the control of arms and drug trafficking in eastern Turkey. In one incident, authorities disrupted a plot that involved the brothers attacking a rival politician from a helicopter with flame throwers.<\/p>\n

After Turkish authorities issued a warrant for their arrest in 2004, the brothers fled to northern Iraq, and then to Azerbaijan, but returned to Turkey shortly before the killing. The exact motive for the murder remains unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Turkish gangster has been given two life sentences after an Istanbul court found him guilty of premeditated murder. The trial was in relation to the 2022 shooting death of Northern Cyprus casino owner Halil Falyal\u0131. Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez was also convicted of \u201cforming and leading a criminal organization.\u201d His brother, Mehmet Faysal S\u00f6ylemez, also an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":307401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,84511],"tags":[84156,89570,89569],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTurkish Gangster Gets Life for Murder of Cypriot Casino Owner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez handed two life sentences for the murder of Northern Cyprus casino owner and underworld figure Halil Falyal\u0131.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Turkish Gangster Gets Life for Murder of Cypriot Casino Owner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez handed two life sentences for the murder of Northern Cyprus casino owner and underworld figure Halil Falyal\u0131.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-01-21T16:14:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-01-22T18:43:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/mustafa.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"994\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"595\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/\",\"name\":\"Turkish Gangster Gets Life for Murder of Cypriot Casino Owner\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/mustafa.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-01-21T16:14:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-01-22T18:43:57+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Mustafa S\u00f6ylemez handed two life sentences for the murder of Northern Cyprus casino owner and underworld figure Halil Falyal\u0131.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/turkish-gangster-gets-life-for-murder-of-cypriot-casino-owner\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/mustafa.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/mustafa.jpg\",\"width\":994,\"height\":595,\"caption\":\"Halil Falyal\u0131, above left, was shot to death in Northern Cyprus in February 2022. 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