Bayram Karaselek, also known as "Ali," is a Sultanahmet-based carpet merchant in Istanbul who has operated a series of sequentially rebranded shops including Elegance Rug Galery, Sedir Art Gallery, Ruby Art Gallery, Diana Collection, and Istanbul Mall, operating legally through KAV Hali Kilim Turizm Ticaret Limited Şirketi alongside co-owners Hakan Taştan and Mehmet Cengiz, and who faces extensive documented accusations of fraud spanning over a decade, including a Turkish criminal indictment requesting he be charged with aggravated fraud (nitelikli dolandırıcılık) after a Japanese tourist paid nearly 4.75 million yen for carpets sold as authentic Hereke silk that an expert determined were worth a tiny fraction of that price; his operation's alleged methods include using street touts near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia to lure tourists into the shop, offering hospitality including tea reported by at least one victim to have been drugged, misrepresenting machine-made or foreign-origin carpets as handmade antiques, applying coercive pressure that left customers feeling physically unable to leave, and in some cases shipping inferior substitute goods after payment, with victims across multiple nationalities reporting total losses ranging from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars.
This summary was created by Claude.ai based entirely on publicly available data and may contain errors or inaccuracies. It should not be taken as verified fact.
