Four more suspects were detained on Sunday as authorities dig deeper into an attempt by the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) seeking revival. Meanwhile, investigations and testimonies exposed how the group sought to brainwash students, their potential recruits, through trips to the Balkan countries, from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro to North Macedonia and Albania, Ihlas News Agency (IHA) reported on Sunday.
In three days of operations in 47 provinces earlier this month, police detained 225 suspects linked to the terrorist group, which was behind the July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Türkiye. Operations centered in the southern province of Gaziantep and expanded into other provinces in the region.
Operations, named after Önder Güzel, a police chief killed by putschists in the capital Ankara during the 2016 coup attempt, followed about one year of surveillance of suspects. Investigators found out that members of FETÖ who managed to hide themselves followed potential recruits for about two years before reaching out to them for brainwashing purposes. Continuing the tradition of FETÖ, suspects categorized prospective recruits based on their embrace of the group’s ideology and maintained a database where those who might have fallen out with the group in the future were tagged.
The investigation revealed that young students FETÖ tricked into joining them were taken on trips in the Balkan countries where the group still has a presence. Authorities say the group aimed to lure impressionable youth by creating an image of their perceived clout in the Balkans. To avoid detection, the group arranged separate plane seats for students taken to trips to the Balkan countries, where students spent at least one week.
One suspect detained in the operations confessed that he had joined a trip to Albania in July 2024. “They told me that it would be a simple trip involving religious education. When I arrived, I realized that it was something organized by FETÖ. I did not know these people, I just wanted to travel,” the suspect claimed.
Operations also uncovered a network of financiers for FETÖ and how the terrorist group concocted a scheme to hide cash transfers from financial scrutiny by transferring small amounts of cash. The terrorist group orchestrated the defeated coup through its military infiltrators. Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.
Türkiye has targeted its active members and sleeper cells nonstop, and its influence has been much reduced since 2016. However, the group maintains a vast network, including infiltrators suspected of still operating within Turkish institutions.
FETÖ backers in army ranks and civil institutions have disguised their loyalty, as operations and investigations have indicated since the 2016 coup attempt. FETÖ 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 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.
Those apprehended were mostly low-ranking members of the group, as high-ranking members managed to flee the country before and immediately after the coup attempt.
Turkish security sources also say the group is in turmoil after the death of its leader, Fetullah Gülen, in October last year.
A power struggle between 12 members of FETÖ’s so-called executive board, based in Pennsylvania, has stoked widespread distrust among the rank and file and financial troubles.
FETÖ has amassed a considerable fortune through donations, as well as a colossal business and school network in Türkiye and around the world. With Gülen’s death, the seniors are eager to claim the unattended wealth, sources say.