Turkish authorities late Monday arrested 126 suspects, including four civil servants, for supplying funds to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ).
In a nationwide crackdown on the group that organized a defeated yet deadly coup d’état in July 2016, authorities detained a total of 353 suspects last week, largely in connection to a döner kebab franchise, Maydonoz Döner, used to raise money for FETÖ activity.
While detentions climbed to 372 in total, some 156 suspects were released under judicial control, and another 90 were released from custody, authorities said.
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, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
The franchise called its scheme “Reference-Based Growth” and based it on organizational trust without any official documentation.
Yerlikaya said 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.
The minister said the company manipulated its shareholders who wanted to walk out by claiming the business had a “spiritual aspect.”
Authorities have since assigned a trustee to Maydonoz Döner following the operations.
Social media was awash with support messages from FETÖ fugitives living abroad.
Yerlikaya said the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) found the restaurant company was financed by people in and outside Türkiye who did not undergo any criminal proceedings. The said money transfers were billed as “product purchases” and forwarded to FETÖ members.
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.
On Tuesday, the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in the capital of Ankara issued detention warrants for 14 suspects linked to FETÖ’s “private services formation” within the Air Forces Command.
The suspects, including seven discharged sergeants and a military student, are wanted for engaging in financial activity, as well as contacting FETÖ’s “civilian imams” using landlines at grocery stores and kiosks in Ankara, the prosecutors said.
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