In the past seven and a half years since its bloody 2016 coup attempt, Turkish security forces have captured thousands of Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) suspects trying to flee to Europe through the northwestern borders of Edirne.

Official figures show that Edirne Provincial Police, in cooperation with the local military and gendarmerie command, has intercepted a total of 3,739 FETÖ fugitives who tried to escape to Greece via the land border in the aftermath of the defeated coup d’état.

In 2023 alone, authorities caught 739 FETÖ suspects on the border, including expelled soldiers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and academicians.

These fugitives often try to blend in with irregular migrants or collaborate with other terrorist groups like the MLKP and PKK, which has been massacred over 40,000 civilians in a four-decade campaign of terror.

Top fugitives

Among the fugitives are important figures like Halil Kumcu, a military officer who was among the abductors of Gen. Galip Mendi, the commander of the Turkish gendarmerie forces, at the time of the coup attempt. Mendi and other top military brass who opposed the coup were kidnapped by FETÖ members as the coup unfolded.

Kumcu was captured at the Edirne border in 2017 and sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment for the crime of "attempting to eliminate the constitutional order" in a 2020 trial.

Murat Çapan, an executive of a magazine linked to the terrorist group, was also among those detained at the border in 2017. He had been sentenced to 22 years and six months in prison for "inciting the people to armed rebellion against the government of the Republic of Türkiye."

Other prominent names were Yunus Y., who wan FETÖ’s network in Colombia, B.Ç, a so-called "civilian imam" in charge of the group’s infiltrators in the Turkish Naval Forces Command, T.S. another so-called "imam" for the Bilecik province, and a Z.T. who recruited students for the police academies and the Gümüşhane University in the eastern province.

All four fugitives were caught while attempting to cross to Greece from Edirne in 2020.

Authorities caught M.E., a former navy colonel in Edirne’s Ipsala border region and arrested him in the capital Ankara in 2019 after he was exposed by the "Fetömeter," an application developed to detect and track FETÖ infiltrators within Turkish military.

Two ex-police officers with suspected links to FETÖ and a woman wanted for PKK membership were also captured as part of a group that included a blue-category wanted MLKP fugitive, Azimet Ceyhan, in May 2019.

Gateway to Europe

For droves of FETÖ members, who scrambled to flee Türkiye after their coup attempt was thwarted by strong public resistance on July 15, 2016, Greece was and still remains the easiest destination to flee to as a gateway to Europe where they are tolerated. FETÖ members usually spend a short amount of time in Greece before moving on to other European countries, with Germany being the most popular destination.

Ekrem Dumanlı, the editor-in-chief of FETÖ mouthpiece Zaman, as well as Cevheri Güven, a journalist involved in a plot by FETÖ to implicate a politician in a sex tape scandal, were among those who fled to Greece after investigations were launched against them in Türkiye. Dumanlı is believed to be in the U.S., while Güven is thought to have moved from Thessaloniki to Germany.

A Greek court's decision not to extradite eight putschist soldiers to Türkiye who fled to Greece the day after the coup attempt is viewed as a move encouraging more FETÖ members to flee to Greece.

Authorities arrested or detained thousands of suspects linked to FETÖ following the coup attempt that killed 251 people. The terrorist group faces operations almost on a daily basis as investigators still try to uncover their massive network of infiltrators everywhere – from military and police to judiciary and bureaucracy.

The terrorist group is also known for its global network of schools and associations it founded while it disguised itself as an international nonprofit organization with religious undertones long before the coup attempt.

Since then, Ankara has been working to bring in FETÖ fugitives from overseas, particularly the U.S. where the group’s leader Fetullah Gülen has relocated to in 1999.

Türkiye has issued multiple extradition requests to the U.S. for Gülen, but despite close relations between the two countries, Washington has not taken any action yet. Türkiye has also sought a preventive arrest to keep Gülen in the U.S. after reports emerged that the terrorist leader was planning to flee to another country.