67 FETÖ suspects captured in nationwide raids
TURKISH security forces apprehended some 67 suspects with links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in countrywide raids, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced yesterday.
Intelligence officers and counterterrorism units captured the suspects in an operation code-named “Clamp-7” conducted across 14 provinces, including the capital Ankara and Istanbul, as well as the southern provinces of Antalya and Manisa, and the eastern Şanlıurfa and Elazığ provinces, Yerlikaya said on X.
“The investigation found the suspects, including convicted fugitives, served the terrorist group’s current activities, as well as in its so-called ‘secret formations’ in the military and the police force,” Yerlikaya said.
A separate investigation revealed the suspects were also involved in FETÖ’s exam fraud, in which the terrorist group leaked the questions of a public personnel selection exam – known as KPSS in Turkish – in 2013 to its members.
The KPSS is a steppingstone into the public sector for people of all backgrounds and covers a wide range of questions from all fields, from culture to geography, but it was used by the terrorist group to place its infiltrators in the Turkish bureaucracy, including ministries.
FETÖ has also been accused of stealing questions and answers to the exam’s several other editions. The exam results of a large number of participants linked to FETÖ were annulled after investigations uncovered the fraud as recently as 2022.
Yerlikaya said there were testimonies alleging the suspects had been given exam questions beforehand and marked as “advantaged” candidates in recruitment interviews. They were named in digital materials and identified in testimonies.
Security forces further confiscated large amounts of cash, digital materials and organizational documents during the raids, Yerlikaya said.
He also informed that 6,045 suspects had been captured in some 4,022 operations conducted against FETÖ since June 1, 2023, when Yerlikaya took over as interior minister.
Türkiye has marked FETÖ as a security threat since December 2013, when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes.
Prosecutors have found the group’s infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the military had waged a long-running campaign to topple the government. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
FETÖ has been under more intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out, which left 251 people dead and thousands more injured.
Under a state of emergency following the attempt, tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public sector jobs.
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.
The National Defense Ministry announced in 2022 that 24,387 Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) members were sacked since the coup attempt for possible ties to the group, while administrative inquiries are underway for over 700 others.
Meanwhile, an unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup was thwarted.
Many of the group’s members had already left the country before the coup attempt after Turkish prosecutors launched investigations into other crimes of the terrorist group.
For droves of FETÖ members, Greece was and remains the easiest destination to flee to as a gateway to Europe, where they are tolerated. FETÖ members usually spend a short time in Greece before moving to other European countries, with Germany being the most popular destination.
Most of them try to flee through the northwestern borders of Edirne province. Police intercepted 3,739 FETÖ fugitives who attempted to escape to Greece via the land border since July 2016, official figures showed, including 739 FETÖ suspects caught on the border in 2023 alone.
These fugitives, featuring expelled soldiers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and academics, often try to blend in with irregular migrants or collaborate with other terrorist groups like the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) and the PKK.