Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on Friday shared statistics regarding operations against the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) since he took office in June 2023. Figures covering the period between June 2023 and May 15, 2024, show 8,153 suspects were captured in 5,191 operations, 1,518 of whom were arrested, while 1,751 suspects were released pending trial.
The latest operation, entitled “Operation Clamp-17,” netted 45 suspects in operations in 18 provinces, Yerlikaya announced.
Counterterrorism police and police intelligence units cooperated for operations from Adana in the south to Sakarya in northwestern Türkiye for the operation that focused on terrorist group infiltrators within law enforcement and its “contemporary” network. Once a powerful entity with thousands of members, FETÖ lost clout following July 15, 2016, with many members fleeing abroad and others convicted and imprisoned. Investigations in the past two years indicated that it sought to rally its supporters again by forming new groups and holding secret meetings.
Yerlikaya said suspects captured in Clamp-17 had evidence of their membership of the group, including the usage of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app developed and exclusively used by FETÖ, contact with their handlers by payphones, a common secret communication method for the group, and statements from eyewitnesses. Some already had arrest warrants from earlier investigations and some were at large after courts sentenced them in absentia for FETÖ membership.
Last year, 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 codenamed “Garson” ("Waiter") who was behind the group’s July 2016 coup.
New statements of “Garson,” an eyewitness in the case against FETÖ since surrendering in 2017, revealed the group maintained its surveillance on 320,000 members of the police for 16 years, up until its notorious first attempt to topple the government in December 2013, according to a report in the Turkish newspaper Sabah.
Encrypted lists of police officers show each was assigned a code based on their links to FETÖ or their opposition to the group’s infiltration. The lists, created by FETÖ handlers, rated the officers in terms of their “loyalty.” They also helped other FETÖ members pinpoint which infiltrators should be “aided” in the promotion of their jobs.
The terrorist group is known for stealing questions and answers to promotion exams to help its members rise in the ranks in the bureaucracy, military and law enforcement, and has been subject to numerous investigations on this issue.
FETÖ still has backers in army ranks and civil institutions, but they managed to disguise their loyalty, as operations and investigations since the coup attempt have indicated. FETÖ is also implicated in a string of cases related to its alleged plots to imprison its critics, money laundering, fraud and forgery.
The group 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.
Hundreds of investigations launched after the attempt sped up the collapse of the group’s far-reaching network in the country. FETÖ was already under the spotlight following two separate attempts to overthrow the government in 2013 through its infiltrators.
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.
