A Turkish court on Friday arrested a suspected Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) member in charge of the group’s so-called student homes in Istanbul.
The suspect identified by his initials M.C.S. was managing the terrorist group’s so-called student formation in the city, an investigation by anti-terrorism police and intelligence officers found.
Police seized two phones, two laptops, a tablet, $670, 100 euros ($108.43) and TL 117,170 in cash at his house.
It was revealed the suspect was developing coded messages to discover other FETÖ members through the communication app Signal, which FETÖ frequently uses.
FETÖ uses student homes to raise infiltrators to be placed in Turkish state institutions. The terrorist group is also known for stealing questions and answers to promotion exams to help its members rise in the ranks in the bureaucracy, military and law enforcement, and has been subject to numerous investigations on this issue.
FETÖ still has backers in 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.
In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
Last year, Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) found that over 3,000 infiltrators of FETÖ were still active within the Turkish National Police after spending more than six years to decipher an encrypted database seized from a top FETÖ member code-named “Garson” ("Waiter"), who was behind the group’s July 2016 coup.
