Tag: The Savarona

  • Donald Trump pal Tevfik Arif busted in Turkey for allegedly running hooker ring aboard yacht

    Donald Trump pal Tevfik Arif busted in Turkey for allegedly running hooker ring aboard yacht

    BY Brian Kates and Rich Schapiro

    DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
    Friday, October 1st 2010, 4:00 AM

    NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 19:  Tevfik Arif, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump at the Trump Soho Launch on September 19, 2007 in New York City.  (Photo by Mark Von Holden/WireImage)
    NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 19: Tevfik Arif, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump at the Trump Soho Launch on September 19, 2007 in New York City. (Photo by Mark Von Holden/WireImage)

    A New York real estate mogul with ties to Donald Trump is at the center of an international sex scandal – suspected of running a high-priced prostitution ring.

    Tevfik Arif, 57, has been detained in Turkey on suspicion of setting up trysts between wealthy businessmen and Eastern European models – some underage – aboard a $60 million yacht once used by the nation’s founder, Mustafa Ataturk.

    Arif, whose Bayrock Group co-developed the Trump SoHo and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Fort Lauderdale, was among 10 people rounded up in Tuesday’s raid on suspicion of running a prostitution ring.

    Prosecutor Yusuf Hakki Dogan said the Savarona yacht was used twice for sexcapades, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported.

    “This is the man who defiled the Savarona,” read the headline on the cover of the Turkish paper Milliyet, beside a photo of Arif.

    Ten models from Russia and Ukraine were detained, but one was released, Bloomberg News reported. Two of the women were underage.

    The businessmen reportedly paid $3,000 to $10,000 per night to bed the women aboard the 450-foot yacht.

    The luxury vessel, which boasts 16 suites, a 282-foot gold-trimmed grand staircase, a movie theater, Turkish bath and helicopter pad, was used by Ataturk before he died in 1938.

    In 1989, Turkish businessman Kahraman Sadikoglu paid the government for the right to operate the yacht, which he reportedly rents out for $30,000 to $40,000 a day.

    Russian, Kyrgyz and Kazakh businessmen and top government officials were also among those detained, Bloomberg News reported.

    Last night, Arif was being questioned at a police station near the Mediterranean resort town of Antalya.

    Antalya provincial spokesman Mahmut Deniz said there’s been no decision on whether to press charges.

    Arif is the victim of a “smear campaign” and will “vigorously defend himself in any court of law,” his lawyer, Engin Agyuzlu, said in an email to Bloomberg News.

    In addition to the Trump properties in New York and Florida, Arif’s firm developed the Trump International Hotel and Tower Phoenix, the Waterpointe, a residential development in Whitestone, Queens, and the Riverhead Resorts in Suffolk County, L.I.

    In an interview in 2007, Arif extolled the benefits of his relationship with The Donald.

    “He’s been very helpful to us from the beginning and he’s been very helpful in opening some doors,” Arif told Real Estate Weekly.

    Photos from the 2007 launch party for the Trump SoHo Hotel show Trump and Arif palling around together. Arif was also photographed beside Trump and his three kids: Eric, Donald Jr., and Ivanka.

    A spokeswoman for Trump declined to comment on his relationship with Arif.

    A source said Trump hasn’t spoken to Arif “in years.”

    The Kazakh-born Arif worked for the Ministry of Commerce and Trade in the former Soviet Union for 17 years, serving as the deputy director of its Department of Hotel Management, according to Real Estate Weekly.

    After moving to the U.S., Arif’s first project was the redevelopment of a 280,000 square-foot waterfront shopping center in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. Loehmann’s Seaport Plaza was sold in 2008 for a reported $24 million.

    Arif founded Bayrock in 2001, which he operates out of an office on Fifth Ave.

    “Bayrock knows nothing about the matter,” said a spokeswoman for the firm.

    Arif owns a three-story mansion in Port Washington, L.I., worth more than $6 million, records show.

    In recent years, Bayrock has been the target of multiple lawsuits.

    In suits filed in New York and Delaware, former Bayrock finance director Jody Kriss claims that the firm defrauded the IRS and embezzled millions from its subsidiaries.

    In a separate lawsuit filed in August in Manhattan Federal Court, 15 buyers of the Trump SoHo Hotel sued Arif, Trump, his children, and Arif’s partner, Alex Sapir, charging they had inflated sales in their marketing pitches to encourage them to buy into the condo.

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  • Turkish Finance Ministry prepares to seize Savarona

    Turkish Finance Ministry prepares to seize Savarona

    The Savaronal
    The Savarona, which has become embroiled in a prostitution scandal, was built in 1931 for the daughter of Brooklyn Bridge chief engineer John A. Roebling. Hürriyet photo

    Turkey’s Finance Ministry has begun procedures to cancel a 49-year lease on the Savarona, the historic yacht used by the founder of modern Turkey during his last days, after the boat became embroiled in a prostitution scandal.

    Fourteen people onboard the Savarona, including businessmen and underage girls allegedly brought from Russia and Ukraine for high-cost prostitution, were detained Monday in a raid on an alleged prostitution ring as the boat lay moored near the Mediterranean town of Göcek.

    “We can cancel the contract [for renting the yacht] as the yacht has not been used in a way consistent with the contract’s conditions,” Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek told journalists during a visit in Gaziantep, adding that if the “other party,” lease-holder Kahraman Sadıkoğlu, would not accept the cancellation of the contract, they would apply to the courts.

    Once the issue is resolved, the ministry will cooperate with the Culture and Tourism Ministry to determine the future of the yacht, Şimşek said, Anatolia news agency reported Thursday.

    Sadıkoğlu, who arrived in Istanbul from Baghdad on Thursday afternoon, said he would first assess the situation with his lawyer before making any statements to the press.

    He is expected to hold a press conference in the following days, Doğan news agency reported Thursday.

    According to daily Habertürk, Sadıkoğlu reacted in a TV program Wednesday to the finance minister’s statements, saying that since hotels where prostitution occurs are not seized, there was no reason to do so for his yacht.

    “When a room is reserved at a hotel, no one is asked what they are going to do in their rooms. As this is not a practice for hotels, shall we ask this of those who pay $50,000 in rent for the yacht?” he asked.

    Nine of the 10 women taken into custody from the Savarona were sent to court while one was released after no evidence implicating her was found. The women have not given testimonies to the gendarmerie but instead chosen to remain silent.

    The Savarona is a 136-meter yacht with 17 luxury suites built in 1931 for the daughter of Brooklyn Bridge chief engineer John A. Roebling. It was sold to Turkey in 1938 and used by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Republic’s founder, to host important guests before his death later that year.

    In 1989, Turkish businessman Sadıkoğlu paid $60 million to the Finance Ministry for the rights to operate the Savarona for 49 years, daily Habertürk said.

    Sadıkoğlu rents the yacht to tourists for $30,000-$40,000 a day to help cover the boat’s annual maintenance costs of more than $3 million, it said.

    , September 30, 2010