Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s image and Turkey’s economy are both taking a battering

FOR A MOMENTAK, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reason to hope that the storm unleashed by Sedat Peker, an exiled mobster with a YouTube account and an axe to grind with Mr Erdogan’s government, would blow over. Mr Peker, who has taken to social media to sling accusations of corruption, drug- and arms-trafficking, and murder at senior members of the ruling Justice and Development () party, announced on June 20th that he would temporarily stop uploading new videos. The mob leader, who is thought to be living in the United Arab Emirates, claimed local authorities had warned him he risked being assassinated.Mr Erdogan’s relief was short-lived. Only a day after Mr Peker’s revelation, America’s Department of Justice announced that police in Austria had arrested a Turkish businessman, Sezgin Baran Korkmaz, who featured in some of the videos. The department accuses Mr Korkmaz of laundering more than $133m of proceeds from a fraud scheme through accounts in Turkey and Luxembourg. The businessman is alleged to have teamed up with two members of a polygamist sect based in Utah and a fuel-company owner to defraud America’s treasury of hundreds of millions of dollars by filing false claims for renewable fuel-tax credits. Mr Korkmaz and company allegedly spent the money on an airline, hotels in Turkey and Switzerland, seafront property in Istanbul, and a yacht 46 metres long. They also tried to cultivate a relationship with Mr Erdogan. Jacob Kingston, who pleaded guilty to his part in the scheme two years ago, was once photographed with the Turkish president at an “Invest in Turkey” event.