A former senior official at Turkey’s Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) is among 22 people under investigation over alleged unauthorized activity in the agency’s intelligence system, including searches involving President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other senior officials, the T24 news website reported on Friday.
Justice Minister Akın Gürlek said the investigation covered 22 people, including someone who was MASAK’s deputy chair at the time of the alleged activity. Five people were detained, warrants were issued for 16 who were abroad on suspicion of political or military espionage, and authorities were seeking the remaining person, Gürlek said.
The İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the security of records in MASAK’s Integrated Financial Intelligence System (EMİS) and whether people accessed it without authorization. Prosecutors said the software was developed by AGMLAB A.Ş. beginning in 2012.
A court ordered the seizure of AGMLAB and a linked company, MRD A.Ş., and appointed Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) to manage them. The TMSF is the state body that manages companies and assets seized by the government. Prosecutors said both companies had previously been placed under trustee management.
The prosecutor’s office also said three former MASAK chiefs, Mürsel Ali Kaplan, İbrahim Hakkı Polat and Osman Dereli, would be questioned on September 28.
Investigators alleged that people and companies they linked to the faith-based Gülen movement had worked on the development and maintenance of MASAK’s digital systems between 2012 and 2018, according to prosecutors. They also alleged ownership and management links among AGMLAB, MRD and Barış Ata A.Ş., a company shut down by emergency decree after a failed coup in 2016.
Prosecutors alleged that some shareholders had ties to the Gülen movement.
The Gülen movement is a civic initiative whose participants have run schools and relief organizations. Erdoğan’s government began targeting the movement after a 2013 corruption investigation implicated people in his inner circle. The government designated the movement a terrorist organization in May 2016 and later accused it of orchestrating the 2016 coup attempt. Neither the United States nor the European Union recognizes that designation. Gülen, who died in 2024 in the US, and the movement denied involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
A technical review found that a safeguard for records concerning politically exposed persons had been disabled before searches involving Erdoğan, members of his family and several ministers were carried out, prosecutors said. Investigators also found signs that some records may later have been changed or deleted. They said the system had kept no logs that would allow them to review the actions of users with administrator access.
