Customer Corner : BMC Otomotiv – Diesel, Power, and Decay

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Let’s not waste time dressing it up. BMC Otomotiv, the Turkish defence darling and bus builder, has been running on Cummins engines for decades. Their Fatih trucks roared to life with Cummins guts in the 1980s, and the partnership stuck like oil on overalls. From ProCity buses puffing along with the B4.5 E6, to logistics lorries powered by the ISM440E20, to the TGR 4340 construction brute with the L9E6E Euro 6, it’s Cummins all the way down. They even tag-teamed on gas-powered buses for Azerbaijan’s streets.

On paper, it’s industrial cooperation. In reality, it’s another grubby link in the Cummins chain – a firm propped up by politics, cloaked in corruption, and riddled with dysfunction.

The Great TMSF Grab – Erdoğan’s Friends and the Fire Sale

2013: Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund swoops in on the debt-soaked Çukurova Group and seizes BMC over $455 million in unpaid loans. The following year, the company is auctioned off to Ethem Sancak – a businessman and loyal Erdoğan ally – for 751 million Turkish lira. Only one bidder, and allegations that the price was 234 million lira under true value. Insiders say the state quietly swallowed another 608 million lira of debt to grease the deal.

Within months, Sancak sells nearly half the firm to Qatari investors for about $300 million. A tidy $290 million windfall without so much as tightening a bolt. Former fund officials have hinted Sancak barely knew what he was buying before handing it off to the “real” buyers – a textbook case of crony capitalism dressed as privatisation.

It’s a neat pattern: state asset seized, debt erased, insider buys cheap, foreign backers swoop in, public loses.

Altay – Turkey’s Billion-Dollar Paperweight

The Altay main battle tank was supposed to be Turkey’s military pride. The first prototypes were built by Otokar from the Koç Group, who hit deadlines and met specs. Then, in 2018, the government handed the production contract to BMC. Cue outrage. Opposition MPs accused Erdoğan’s circle of rigging the bid for Sancak and his Qatari partners.

Seven years on, there’s still no serial production. BMC blames missing powerplants and site issues, but critics point to the same thing that dogs every scandal in Ankara – political favouritism over competence. Transparency International calls Turkey’s defence sector one of the least transparent in NATO, and the Altay debacle is Exhibit A.

Billions in public funds gone, not a single tank rolling. Meanwhile, BMC’s lorries still hum along on Cummins diesel.

Karasu – Erdoğan’s Empty Promise Park

2019 brought the grand groundbreaking in Karasu, Sakarya – a new mega-plant to build tanks and trucks, hailed as a national milestone. Erdoğan stood beside the Qatari Emir as cameras rolled. The crowds were told it would bring jobs, security, and pride.

By 2022, it was a ghost site. Construction halted, machinery stripped, nothing built. CHP deputy Engin Özkoç called it “one of the Republic’s grandest heists”. State land gone, public funds burned, accountability nowhere.

By 2021, BMC’s liquidity crisis forced Sancak to sell his stake to Tosyalı Holding. The Qataris stayed on. BMC stayed afloat. But the Karasu saga proved what TCAP readers already know – that corporate survival in Erdoğan’s Turkey depends not on innovation but on proximity.

The Wider Web – Sanctions, Sleaze, and Silence

BMC’s name has surfaced in reports about Turkish involvement in Libya’s conflict, dragging with it the risk of sanctions. Its armoured exports and Doha deals thrive on political patronage. Former executives like Murat Yalçıntaş have been named in suits over missing funds. Each case fades into the fog of “ongoing investigations” that never seem to end.

The pattern never changes. Companies close to the palace cash in, state watchdogs look away, and anyone raising questions is branded unpatriotic. The defence sector becomes a political piggy bank, its moral compass traded for profit.

The Cummins Connection

While BMC fumbles tanks and squanders funds, Cummins keeps its engines humming in their fleet. Diesel in the buses, gas in the exports, new Accelera batteries in the next PR cycle. It’s a partnership stretching four decades – and proof that Cummins will supply anyone, anywhere, as long as the invoice clears.

Cummins sells “sustainability”. BMC sells tanks and political access. Together, they sell a story of progress that’s anything but. For all the talk of zero-emission futures, the present still runs on diesel – and denial.

BMC isn’t a rogue case. It’s the blueprint: a loyalist company stuffed with Cummins hardware, fattened by public money, and shielded by power. It shows what happens when corruption and corporate complicity fuse – an industry that protects itself, not the people it claims to serve.

They’ll call it partnership. TCAP calls it what it is – a racket.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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