President Recep Tayyip Erodgan, Turkey's former economy czar is back with a memoir on his tumultuous reign - with one glaring omission.
Their close links even sparked speculation Mr Albayrak, now 44 and married to Mr Erdogan's elder daughter Esra, was being groomed as a potential successor to the man who's led Turkey as prime minister or president since 2003. Mr Erdogan never took the demands seriously, once remarking"may a stone as big as son-in-law fall upon you".
Mr Albayrak blames a widening current account deficit and companies' net foreign exchange debt repayments during the pandemic for the losses, even though the decline in reserves began months before the Covid-19 virus emerged.The rundown in reserves accelerated during market turmoil that preceded key municipal elections in March 2019.
Foreign investors"shorted" the lira in an attempt to weaken it past psychologically important levels of 10-per-dollar before the elections, he writes.