Anti-smuggling and organized crime units of the police launched nationwide operations on Thursday against a criminal enterprise accused of devising multiple fraud schemes. The police sought arrests of 226 suspects and summoned 268 others to police stations for questioning. So far, 176 suspects were detained.
Operations are underway to capture the suspects in 43 provinces, Interior Ministry announced. Suspects are accused of defrauding hundreds of people and causing losses of “millions” to state revenues. The operation, dubbed “Dümen” (after a Turkish slang word for swindle), was the result of surveillance for about six months by police officers.
The schemes of suspects are varied, according to police. In one case, suspects recruited a person resembling a high-ranking public official, tricking gullible victims into paying him bribes in exchange for “ending any criminal investigations against them or influencing the court officials.” The same public official also convinced the victims that he would “accelerate” lengthy bureaucratic procedures, like obtaining a gun license.
In another scheme, members of the enterprise forged tax registers with the stolen information of legal businesses and thus, tricked the banks into giving them loans. They are also accused of forging promissory notes or forging new names on existing promissory notes to obtain money.
They are accused of being involved in other schemes, such as forgery of official documents, producing counterfeit money and driving licenses, as well as prescriptions bearing the names of hospitals they used to buy prescribed supplementary drugs they later sold to gyms.
A “cell” of the enterprise collected money from businesses by alerting them to inspections against violations of smoking bans beforehand and forging documents to collect incentives the state paid to businesses employing a certain number of employees. It was unclear whether public officials were among the wanted suspects.
