Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) has announced plans to auction off several companies and assets in September, including businesses seized over alleged links to the faith-based Gülen movement, according to reports in the Turkish media.
Among the companies slated for sale are RHG Enerjitürk, HES Kablo and İstikbal Mobilya, subsidiaries of the family-owned Boydak Holding, as well as Aydınlı Giyim Grubu, a major apparel retailer. These businesses were confiscated following accusations that their owners supported the Gülen movement.
According to the official schedule, HES Kablo will be auctioned on September 9, RHG Enerjitürk on September 24 and İstikbal Mobilya on September 30. The auction for Aydınlı Giyim Grubu is set for September 23. Their total estimated value is 64 billion Turkish lira (approximately $1.57 billion).
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since corruption probes in 2013 implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan as well as some of his family members and inner circle.
Dismissing the investigations as a Gülenist coup and a conspiracy against his government, Erdoğan began to target the movement’s members. He designated the movement as a terrorist organization in May 2016 and intensified the crackdown on it followinga failed coup on July 15of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
Since then, 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.
Among the major conglomerates the TMSF has taken over are Dumankaya, Boydak Holding, the Koza Ipek Group and Kaynak Holding. The TMSF, which has been managing companies confiscated under post-coup emergency decrees since 2016, has continued liquidating assets belonging to individuals and corporations accused of ties to the Gülen movement.
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.
The owners of Aydınlı Giyim Grubu and Boydak Holding stood trial due to their alleged links to the Gülen movement and were sentenced on charges of “membership in a terrorist organization.”
Ömer Faruk Kavurmacı, the owner of Aydınlı Grubu, was detained in August 2016 as part of investigations into the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (TUSKON), labeled by the Erdoğan government as the businessmen’s structure of the Gülen movement. Kavurmacı, who suffers from serious health problems, was released in May 2017 but rearrested a month later. He was then sentenced to almost nine years in prison on terrorism-related charges and released in February 2020 under judicial supervision.
Chairman of Boydak Holding Hacı Boydak and CEO Memduh Boydak were arrested in March 2016, prior to the coup attempt, on accusations of supporting the Gülen movement. In 2018, Turkish courts sentenced Memduh Boydak to 18 years in prison for allegedly leading a terrorist organization, while Hacı Boydak received 11 years, 10 months for membership in the same. Their convictions were upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeals in 2023. Hacı Boydak was released in June 2024, although several members of the Boydak family remain incarcerated.
According to figures published by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency last month, 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.
A 2023 report by the Institute for Diplomacy and Economy estimated that Turkey has seized around $50 billion in assets from more than 1.5 million people since 2016, warning that the scale of the confiscations may constitute “persecution” amounting to crimes against humanity under international law.
