Turkish security forces have caught a total of 611 suspects linked to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) in nationwide raids, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced Tuesday.
Operation "Clamp," conducted jointly by the Security General Directorate’s intelligence directorate, organized crime unit and anti-terrorism department with backing from the National Intelligence Organization (MIT), took place in 77 provinces across Türkiye.
Suspects included members who operated in FETÖ’s provincial, financial and education branches, Yerlikaya wrote on social media platform X.
The authorities pursued individuals who were hiding in the group’s so-called "gaybubet (absence) houses" – used as safe houses – looking for illegal ways to flee abroad, their abettors, ByLock users or those whose names have been featured in ByLock content, and those who were named as member or executive in testimonies, Yerlikaya said.
The suspects attempting to escape were using identity cards and passports belonging to other nations, he noted.
"They were trying to recruit students and reporting the candidates and their families to their higher-ups," Yerlikara said. "The group opened student centers and appointed superintendents and district administrators. They also named provincial education consultants, trade custodians and aid collectors."
FETÖ was also reopening what is known as "homes" in the group’s jargon to place its members in civil institutions and military schools, according to Yerlikaya.
He said the group sought to arrange marriages to prevent internal fractures and paid off the families of its convicted members in hopes of maintaining their loyalty.
The transactions took place in public places like restrooms at shopping malls to ensure security cameras could not catch them, Yerlikaya noted.
The warrants follow countless others for hundreds of suspects that serve in remnant cells of FETÖ.
Since December 2013, when the terrorist group emerged as the perpetrator of two coup attempts disguised as graft probes, FETÖ has been regarded as a security threat. 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.
As its activities face heightened scrutiny following multiple attempts to seize power, FETÖ apparently strove to hide its fugitive followers, according to its former followers. A former member who testified to prosecutors has said that the number of the group’s so-called gaybubet houses increased from 75 to 560 across Türkiye. Authorities believe that number might be even higher.
FETÖ has been under more intense scrutiny since the July 15, 2016, coup attempt its infiltrators in the army carried out.
The Ministry of National Defense announced last year 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 781 others.
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. Despite Türkiye’s extradition requests and bilateral legal agreements, many FETÖ members still freely enjoy their lives in different countries around the world. In the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, Türkiye has sped up extradition processes for members of FETÖ abroad.