Authorities have nabbed five members of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and four other fugitives trying to flee to Greece on the border of Türkiye’s northwestern Edirne province, the Defense Ministry said Sunday.
FETÖ has been regarded as a security threat since December 2013, when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes, and 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.
Following the attempt, a state of emergency was declared and tens of thousands of people were detained, arrested or dismissed from public-sector jobs.
Prosecutors say that the group's infiltrators in law enforcement, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the military had waged a long-running campaign to topple the government. The group 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 uncover their massive network of infiltrators everywhere – from military and police to judiciary and bureaucracy.
In 2024 alone, police apprehended hundreds of FETÖ suspects across the country, including fugitives on western borders trying to flee to Europe.
An unknown number of FETÖ members, mostly high-ranking figures, fled Türkiye when the coup attempt 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. Police intercepted 3,739 FETÖ fugitives who tried 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, including 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.
In other cases, the group organizes the escape of members who are wanted or close to receiving a conviction via SIM cards registered under the identities of other people, according to a report in the Turkish newspaper Sabah.
Sabah alleged the group called on its members within Türkiye to leave the country, trying to create the idea of a "hijra," the mass exodus of Muslims under the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622.
FETÖ prioritizes the "extraction" of members who served in critical roles or so-called "private" divisions and now face risk by staying in Türkiye. Sabah said FETÖ aids these figures in their escape while leaving others to fend for themselves.