Authorities arrested a Chinese student and a Bosnian student for their links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) after investigators discovered that the group responsible for the 2016 coup attempt recruited and used foreigners to hide their tracks. Unidentified students were arrested upon orders of the Chief Prosecutor's Office in Uşak, a western city. Prosecutors were investigating a practice by the terrorist group to bring students from abroad to study in Turkey in exchange for loyalty to the group.
FETÖ members also allegedly tricked students into buying cellphone accounts and gave them to their own members, apparently in a bid to avoid detection amid escalated crackdown on the group after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt. Fourteen students from various countries had two phone numbers each, and each one was used by group's members all across the country, according to prosecutors.
The terrorist group that long disguised itself as a charity movement with religious undertones, tried to topple the government in Turkey twice in 2013 and once in 2016. In the 2016 attempt, it killed 250 people to seize power though it ultimately failed and led to detention or arrests of thousands linked to the group. The terrorist group, which calls itself the Hizmet (Service) Movement, runs a sprawling network of schools and companies across the globe.
Anadolu Agency (AA) reported that the investigation showed how FETÖ members attracted children of prominent families in other countries to schools they ran in Turkey and accommodated them in dormitories and houses run by the terrorist group. The group then directed them to universities in Turkey that they should enroll in following university admission exams. Every student was asked to buy an additional cellphone number and distributed these numbers to local members of the terrorist group. Investigators also discovered ByLock, an encrypted messaging app exclusively used by the terrorist group, in smartphones owned by some students.
Security sources say FETÖ brainwashed thousands of foreign students and sought to exert their influence on them after they returned home once they completed their studies in Turkey.