Police on Tuesday captured 31 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in Türkiye’s western province of Izmir.
The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Izmir issued warrants for 35 suspects on charges of serving FETÖ’s current branch and pursuing efforts to reconstruct and finance it.
The search is underway for the other suspects still at large.
FETÖ still has backers in the army ranks and civil institutions, but they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations since the coup attempt have indicated. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The group faced increased scrutiny following the coup attempt that killed 251 people and injured nearly 2,200 others. Tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs following the attempt under a state of emergency.
Hundreds of investigations launched after the attempt sped up the collapse of the group’s far-reaching network in the country. FETÖ was already under the spotlight following two separate attempts to overthrow the government in 2013 through its infiltrators.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere, but an unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup attempt was thwarted.
