Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has announced plans to auction off Faruk Güllüoğlu, a major dessert chain that was confiscated following a 2016 coup attempt over its owner’s alleged ties to the faith-based Gülen movement.
According to the Diken news website, the company will be auctioned on April 8 with an estimated value of 223 million lira (about $5.1 million).
The company’s founder, Faruk Güllü, was convicted following the coup attempt. In 2020 the İstanbul 23rd High Criminal Court sentenced him to more than eight years in prison on charges of “membership in an armed terrorist organization.” He was released on grounds of health and the time he had spent in pretrial detention.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has targeted followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption investigations in December 2013 implicated him as well as some members of his family and inner circle. He dismissed the probes as a Gülenist conspiracy and later designated the movement a terrorist organization in May 2016, intensifying a sweeping crackdown after a failed coup attempt in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of orchestrating. The movement denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Since the coup attempt, the Erdoğan government has seized schools, universities, media outlets, companies and their buildings and the assets of individuals, corporations and organizations that were allegedly linked to the movement.
According to figures published by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency in July 2025, Turkish authorities have seized 784 companies with a total asset value of TL 42.3 billion at the time of their takeover, an estimated $14 billion in 2016 USD terms, as part of the sweeping crackdown on the Gülen movement that followed the abortive putsch.
Asset sales have continued in the months following that report. Last September cable manufacturer HES Kablo was sold for 18.6 billion lira (about $450 million), while major apparel retailer Aydınlı Group fetched 20.3 billion lira (about $490 million) and energy company RHG Enertürk sold for $110 million. A planned tender for furniture giant İstikbal Mobilya was called off after no buyers came forward.
Critics contend that the planned asset sales represent the culmination of a broad confiscation policy that has stripped thousands of people of their property without judicial oversight or due process. Human rights groups warn that such measures constitute collective punishment and violate international conventions protecting the right to property and prohibiting arbitrary deprivation.
