A Turkish businessman wanted in a growing İstanbul investigation into allegations of drug use, drug trafficking and prostitution says a network tied to Justice Minister Akın Gürlek demanded $2 million to keep his name out of the case, raising new questions about an inquiry that has swept up celebrities, businesspeople and media figures since late 2025.
According to the Turkish Minute, the businessman, Öncü Sönmez, who says he left Turkey and is now in the United States after receiving death threats, has accused people around Gürlek of using the criminal probe and hostile media coverage as tools of extortion.
In a series of videos and posts published over the past three days, Sönmez laid out a sweeping account of what he described as a system that brought together underworld figures, pro-government media and the judiciary. He named alleged drug trafficker Ali Uzun, pro-government Sabah daily journalist Abdurrahman Şimşek and Gürlek, who served as İstanbul chief public prosecutor before President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan appointed him justice minister in February, as central figures in the alleged network.
Gürlek, as chief prosecutor, led a crackdown on the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the case against İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu before joining the cabinet.
Sönmez said the pressure campaign began in mid-2025 and centered on threats that he would be include in the same celebrity drug and prostitution investigation that has expanded in repeated waves since October. In that probe prosecutors are pursuing allegations including possession of narcotics for personal use, facilitating drug use, encouraging or mediating prostitution and providing places for illegal gambling. In its latest phase the case has touched former football club chairmen, actors, singers, models, journalists and businessmen.
Sönmez said Uzun’s men assaulted him at Zorlu Center in İstanbul on June 18, 2025, beat him and demanded $5 million. He said he was threatened with arrest, fabricated vice allegations and the release of damaging material if he did not pay. He later described a second meeting the following night at a hotel and then a longer meeting in İstanbul’s Etiler district on the night of June 20, where he said the demand was reframed as a $2 million “solution.”
At that Etiler meeting Sönmez said Şimşek and others presented themselves as the people who could make the problem go away through their access to prosecutors and media outlets. He said the group claimed to be working in tandem with Uzun’s network and showed him what he described as a warrant already prepared in his name. He said people at the meeting referred to Gürlek as “minister” before he had actually been appointed to the post and invoked his authority as proof that the threat was real.
Sönmez said the extortion did not rely on criminal threats alone. He alleged that it also involved a campaign to destroy his public image through stories planted in the Sabah newspaper and pro-government A Haber news website portraying him as part of a world of drugs, prostitution and coercive sex parties. Public records show that A Haber did publish stories about Sönmez in June 2025 and again on March 25, 2026, linking him to violent abuse allegations and to the growing investigation centered on a luxury house in İstanbul’s Çengelköy neighborhood. Sönmez says those reports were part of the pressure campaign and were used to show him what would happen if he refused to cooperate.
He said one thread of the dispute grew out of an earlier episode involving a woman named Dilara Kirmit, who he said had turned to him for help after explicit videos were recorded under coercive conditions. Sönmez said he intervened, insulted the people involved and later accepted a court penalty for using inappropriate language. He said that case was then turned into another source of pressure, with new demands for money made through intermediaries. He also alleged that another woman, Aycan Şencan, was used in efforts to generate false complaints against him.
Sönmez further claimed that members of the network threatened to use stolen photographs of his girlfriend and other women to build false narratives around him. He said more than 50 women were approached to produce accusations and that some media reports used images taken from his private life. He also alleged that the group offered different payment formulas, including lower sums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, installment plans and even vehicle transfers, after the original multimillion-dollar demands met resistance.
In his videos Sönmez repeatedly returned to the same broader claim: that the celebrity drug probe had become what he called a “market” for extortion. He said wealthy but legitimate businessmen were being targeted for payouts while the real narcotics figures remained untouched. He named several other alleged traffickers and fixers whom he said authorities had left alone while focusing on people with money or public profiles.
He also said he has records to support parts of his account, including phone logs, hotel records, timestamps, court papers, voice recordings and photographs. In one of his posts, he shared a link to what he said was an audio recording of an extortion demand. In others, he posted photographs and said authorities could verify his account by checking official records from specific dates and places in İstanbul.
As part of the high-profile İstanbul drug probe, many well-known people have been detained and then released under judicial supervision, while others were jailed pending trial. The latest wave last week, included Fikret Orman, former chairman of the Beşiktaş football club, Burak Elmas, former chairman of the Galatasaray football club, businessmen Hakan Sabancı and Kerim Sabancı and models Didem Soydan and Güzide Duran.
That breadth is central to Sönmez’s argument. He says the investigation’s scale and publicity made it an ideal instrument for coercion because the threat of being named in the file could itself ruin reputations, whether or not the claims were true. In his telling the same machinery that brought celebrities and businessmen into the investigation was deployed against him through a mix of force, media pressure and judicial intimidation.
The case carries added weight because of Gürlek’s profile. Since taking over as İstanbul chief public prosecutor and then becoming justice minister, he has become one of the most controversial figures in Turkey’s judiciary. Critics say he symbolizes the use of the courts and prosecutors against political opponents. His appointment as minister triggered backlash because of his role in the crackdown on the opposition.
