The Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) faces a new barrage of operations as part of ongoing investigations across the country. On Tuesday, authorities captured a total of 239 suspects in separate operations against the group, which is the culprit of the July 15, 2016 coup attempt.
The biggest roundup was in an investigation into FETÖ’s infiltration into the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Some 158 suspects were captured while a manhunt is underway to capture 16 others in operations based on a joint investigation by the Chief Prosecutor’s Offices in Istanbul and the western city of Izmir. Security forces carried out raids in 41 provinces in the early hours of Tuesday for operations focusing on active-duty and former military officers who secretly communicated with civilian members of the terrorist group. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul released a statement about the operations and said that FETÖ still poses the biggest threat to the constitutional order and has yet to be undetected infiltrators in the army.
The statement said one of the most efficient investigation methods to detect FETÖ infiltrators focused on the terrorist group’s favored communications model that involves public payphones. This model involves military infiltrators contacting civilian members of the group who serve as handlers, through payphones, and arranging secret meetings. Prosecutors said the office and counterterrorism police carried out joint efforts to create a database on payphones across Türkiye and managed to conduct operations against FETÖ, both against those involved in the coup attempt and other suspects in the army whose direct ties to the attempt were not uncovered before.
Across Türkiye, a total of 1,918 operations were carried out against those suspects since 2016 and 28,262 people were identified. Some 25,869 among them were detained so far. The statement said 9,055 among them were remanded in custody, while 13,972 suspects were released with judicial control and 2,393 suspects remained at large. It also said 9,533 suspects initially detained were released when they collaborated with authorities and supplied information about FETÖ’s inner workings that ultimately led to more operations and detentions. The Chief Prosecutor’s Office said the rate of collaborators in proportion to the total number of suspects captured stood at 37%.
Those wanted in Tuesday’s operations included colonels, lieutenant-colonels and officers in lower ranks serving in the Land Forces, Air Forces, Gendarmerie Forces and Naval Forces of the army, as well as former cadets of military schools.
In another operation based on an investigation by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Istanbul, police detained 21 suspects, including 13 active-duty police officers. Suspects were members of a secret network of the terrorist group within law enforcement and included two “law enforcement imams” of FETÖ. “Imam” is a name given to the group’s handlers for infiltrators in the army, law enforcement or judiciary. FETÖ, which disguised itself as a so-called religious movement for years, often resorts to religious terms in its secretive jargon. Other detained suspects included six former police officers who were earlier expelled on suspicion of having links to the terrorist group. Operations were carried out in Istanbul, Ankara, Aydın, Antalya, Balıkesir, Batman, Erzincan, Gaziantep, Izmir, Kahramanmaraş, Mardin, Muğla, Samsun and Sivas.
Elsewhere, authorities launched raids in eight provinces against suspects linked to a restaurant chain that was earlier seized for funding FETÖ. Sixty suspects were detained in the operations that targeted those transferring cash to other FETÖ members, particularly those expelled from the public sector on suspicion of links to the group. Suspects are also accused of secretly hiring people under investigation for FETÖ links through secret partnership programs, in a bid to deliver cash to them.
In a nationwide crackdown in February, authorities detained dozens of suspects in connection with a döner kebab franchise, Maydonoz Döner, used to raise money for FETÖ activity. The initial findings of that investigation showed that the franchise gave illegitimate partnerships to people linked to FETÖ for a certain sum and refused to award shares to people not referred by the terrorist group. The franchise called its scheme “Reference-Based Growth” and based it on organizational trust without any official documentation. Authorities have said earlier that all branches of the chain were used to create jobs for FETÖ-linked people and funnel funds to the group, including “himmet” rates. "Himmet" is the name FETÖ gave to donations to the group or cash obtained through extortion.
In order to avoid tracking, illegal shareholders passed the money through FETÖ-linked shops such as jewelry stores via a consignment method. The franchise firm grew its business abroad with new branches, which eased the transfer of money to FETÖ members outside Türkiye. Authorities have since assigned a trustee to Maydonoz Döner following the operations.
FETÖ has 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.
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.
FETÖ still has backers in the army and civil institutions, but as operations and investigations since the coup attempt have indicated, they have managed to disguise their loyalty. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
In 2023, 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.
