EXCLUSIVE

A BRITISH couple are trying to find a former Didim complex manager who has gone missing with £32,000of their life-savings to be used for their ultimate wedding present.

Keeron Jones, and his wife Helena Jarvis-Jones, from Neath, South Wales, entrusted the money with Mustafa Pekel in October 2012 to pay another British man for an apartment on the Dolphin Residence 1 complex, opposite the Esra Hotel, in Didim.

Mr Pekel, who had worked as the complex manager for a number of years, had been given power of attorney by the couple to complete the deal.

The couple were only married in May last year and had intended to buy the apartment as a wedding present to enable them to continue their love affair with holidays in Turkey.

Mr Jones, a former police officer, and his wife, a nurse, kept in touch with Mr Pekel over the next year about the purchase of the two-bed apartment and he assured them all was well.

However, the couple, who married last year, became increasingly alarmed about how long it was taking, and their worst fears were confirmed when the British apartment seller made contact in November 2013 with them and revealed he had not received the bulk of the money from Mr Pekel.

They immediately contacted Mr Pekel who apologised and assured them the matter would come to a conclusion.

Mustafa Pekel

However, the Jones, on arriving at Dolphin Residence recently, discovered Mr Pekel had left the site, is no longer employed as the complex maintenance manager and can’t be found. He is not answering emails or his phone.

The Jones have since instructed lawyer Atilla Camli to begin legal proceedings against Mr Pekel, who is understood to be either in Akbuk or Kusadasi.

Mr Jones told Voices: “It never crossed our minds that Mustafa would do this to us and just disappear. He has taken our life-savings and robbed us of a dream move to our apartment.

“We treated him as a friend, but we are shocked and disappointed that he apparently kept the money and did not complete the sale. Now, he has apparently gone missing.

“He has left a lot of unanswered questions and we are angry and disappointed. We are equally frustrated with ourselves in allowing this matter to continue for so long. It was only when the seller contacted us that we thought something wasn’t right.”

Further enquiries by the Voices Newspaper, has established that Mr Pekel was dismissed by the site committee in January 2014 but he did not leave the complex, where he was living in an apartment, until April. His whereabouts over the last six weeks remain a mystery.

New site management are in charge of Dolphin Residence and are in no way related to, or have any links with, Mr Pekel.