Turkish authorities on Friday said some 13 out of 34 suspects captured over their links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) were arrested.
Police caught 41 suspects in synchronized raids across five cities, including in Istanbul and western Izmir province, earlier this week. Seven other suspects fled abroad, police said.
Authorities released four suspects on probation and let 21 others go after their questioning.
The suspects are charged with tax evasion and using a sweets shop as a front to funnel funds to the terrorist group. They issued dummy invoices for commercial transactions at the shop to evade state taxes and transfer the money to FETÖ, authorities found.
The shop, which did not hire anyone with an apparent connection to FETÖ, provided the group with financing under the guise of “benevolence” by making deductions from employee wages.
Authorities also discovered organizational meetings were held at the shop.
A branch of the sweets shop in Izmir’s Bayraklı district was raided last year in December on suspicion of FETÖ-linked activity. Authorities had found the business was used as a “cell house” for the terrorist group and generated TL 40 million ($1.02 million) in funding for FETÖ.
The terrorist group orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, in Türkiye, in which 252 people were killed and 2,734 were wounded. Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Türkiye has targeted its active members and sleeper cells nonstop, and its influence has been much reduced since 2016. However, the group maintains a vast network, including infiltrators suspected of still operating within Turkish institutions.
FETÖ backers in army ranks and civil institutions have disguised their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The terrorist group faces operations almost daily as investigators still try to unravel their massive network of infiltrators everywhere. In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
Those apprehended were mostly low-ranking members of the group, as high-ranking members managed to flee the country before and immediately after the coup attempt.
Turkish security sources also say the group is in turmoil after the death of its leader, Fetullah Gülen, in October last year.
