Turkish police have detained eight more people in an expanding bribery and money laundering investigation targeting the Antalya Metropolitan Municipality, where the mayor, Muhittin Böcek, has been in pretrial detention since July, Turkish Minute reported on Wednesday.
The operation, conducted by the police under the coordination of the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, led to the detention of eight suspects identified only by the initials U.K.Y., A.A., H.T.A., H.A., Y.Y., B.G., B.G. and A.E. on allegations of bribery and laundering criminal assets. Police carried out searches at their homes and workplaces, DHA said.
The probe, launched earlier this year, initially led to the arrest of Mayor Böcek from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) on July 5. He was suspended from office by the interior ministry soon thereafter. On the same day his former daughter-in-law Z.K. was detained and later released under judicial supervision. His current daughter-in-law, Zuhal Böcek, was arrested on July 27 on charges of money laundering, while his son Mustafa Gökhan Böcek was detained upon returning from Vienna on August 19 and later arrested by a court.
Over the following months, several senior officials and businesspeople were detained in successive phases of the investigation. On August 12 police took 17 people into custody in simultaneous raids, eight of whom were later jailed. On September 10 another 21 suspects were detained, with three subsequently released after cooperating under Turkey’s “effective remorse” provisions. On October 14 police detained six more suspects, three of whom were arrested.
The case is part of a broader crackdown on the CHP that has intensified since the party’s sweeping victory in the March 2024 local elections, when it again won İstanbul, Ankara and other major cities and secured the largest share of the national vote for the first time in decades. The CHP described the probes and operations as part of a year-long government campaign targeting its municipalities and mayors in a report titled “Judiciary Against the Ballot Box: The Anatomy of a Coup,” released in late October.
According to the report 16 CHP mayors are currently jailed, while trustees have been appointed to 13 municipalities across the country. The report documented mass arrests, politically motivated prosecutions and the seizure of opposition-run municipalities following the 2024 elections. It also noted a surge in corruption and terrorism-related investigations into CHP officials since the arrest of İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu in March 2025, calling his case “the most visible example of political pressure on the opposition.”
The CHP argued that the government has increasingly relied on the judiciary “as a political weapon” to roll back opposition gains at the ballot box. Citing hundreds of arrests in nine operations targeting the İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality between March and August 2025, the party said the crackdown violates constitutional guarantees of local autonomy and the presumption of innocence.
Opposition figures and rights groups also contend that the probes are being used to intimidate opposition-led municipalities and overturn election results unfavorable to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
