The pace of foreign currency coming to Turkey from unknown sources for the past 12 years keeps on climbing. Nobody says where the money is coming from. In the Central Bank’s “balance of payments” table these unregistered funds are shown under the item “net error and deficit.”

But all economists know that it is impossible to conceal such high amounts. Anyhow, they have learned to look under the “net error and deficit” column to follow the movement of mystery funds.

This flow of funds from unknown sources is closely linked to political changes in Turkey in the last 12 years and to regional developments.

Mahfi Egilmez, a former undersecretary of the Treasury, has prepared a detailed table which clearly shows that following the Justice and Development Party's (AKP) victory in the first elections it contested in November 2002 there has been a boom in mystery funds coming to Turkey. In 2002, $758 million exited Turkey but in 2003 $4.489 billion entered. The pouring in of mystery funds gained momentum in 2007, when the AKP also took over the presidency of the country, thus giving rise to confidence that AKP would be governing for a long time to come. While the incoming mystery funds were $517 million in 2007, in 2008 that increased sixfold to $3 billion. The year 2011 was a record-breaker, with $9.4 billion arriving in mystery funds.