Authorities issued arrest warrants for 36 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) on Tuesday. Operations were launched in 18 provinces to capture the suspects.

In one investigation, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in the Turkish capital Ankara sought the arrests of 21 people implicated in an exam fraud. The suspects are accused of leaking questions and answers to fellow members of the terrorist group in the Public Personnel Selection Exam (KPSS) in 2013. The exam, which was later canceled, was mired with accusations of fraud perpetrated by the terrorist group. A gateway to the public sector for would-be civil servants, the exam was used by FETÖ to place its infiltrators in key positions in the bureaucracy, ultimately aiming to seize power.

FETÖ is already implicated in a string of cheating allegations in public exams. Multiple investigations into the group's methods for cheating found that FETÖ leaked key information to young members, either hand-picked by the group's leaders or eager to join the public sector. Former members of the group had testified in other cases that "brothers" or "imams," point men and handlers for FETÖ, provided them questions and answers for exams. Civilians are believed to have gained access to well-protected information through infiltrators in bodies tasked with organizing the tests.

In a statement, the Chief Prosecutor’s Office said suspects were identified through statements of former members of the terrorist group who testified that the wanted once stayed in "study houses" of FETÖ, a type of safe house where FETÖ members gathered and memorized questions and answers before the exams. Suspects were also users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by FETÖ members, and used public payphones, a common method employed by the terrorist group, to contact each other.

Fifteen suspects, including seven lawyers, are wanted in another investigation by the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Ankara. Suspects were mostly former recruits of a police academy that was closed after the July 15, 2016 coup attempt instigated by military infiltrators of FETÖ. Suspects’ names came up in an investigation into the "special coding" of secret members of the terrorist group. In earlier operations, investigators have discovered lists of secret members of the group which, for a long time, posed as a charity movement, who were given code names and assigned numbers to prevent the detection of their affiliation with the terrorist group.