Turkish authorities on Tuesday said they detained some 29 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terrorist Group (FETÖ) and arrested nine others in nationwide raids.
The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in the capital, Ankara, said police caught 29 of the 41 suspects wanted for serving as infiltrators of FETÖ within the police force, recruiting new members, and monitoring the loyalties of existing infiltrators.
Operations spanned 19 provinces, including Ankara, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that it ordered the detention of 36 suspected handlers of FETÖ’s so-called secret formation within the police, including six who are still active in state institutions for acting as “secret imams.”
Five other suspects were wanted for being users of FETÖ’s crypto communication program ByLock.
Police continue searching for remaining suspects at large, it said.
Also on Tuesday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced nine FETÖ suspects were caught while trying to flee abroad by boat from the Aegean city of Muğla, a typical escape route to Europe for dozens of convicted FETÖ members.
“Nine of the suspects were arrested for being a member of an armed terrorist organization and four others were arrested for migrant smuggling,” Yerlikaya said on X.
FETÖ was behind the July 15, 2016, coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out, which left 251 people dead and thousands more injured.
Before that, the terrorist group was the perpetrator of two other coup attempts disguised as graft probes and was marked a security threat first in December 2013.
Following the attempt, a state of emergency was declared and tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public-sector jobs.
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.
