Bünyamin Tekin
A Turkish whistleblower who alleged a vast money-laundering and bribery scheme linking northern Cyprus to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s inner circle has been gunned down in the Netherlands in what authorities suspect was a targeted assassination.
The victim, 41-year-old Cemil Önal, was shot at close range on a hotel terrace in Rijswijk, a suburb of The Hague, on Thursday evening.
Dutch police said a Turkish national was killed by an assailant who approached without a mask, fired multiple shots and fled, leaving Önal mortally wounded at the scene.
They have yet to officially confirm Önal’s identity, but sources in touch with Önal’s loved ones told Turkish Minute that the 41-year-old Turkish man killed in the Netherlands was indeed Cemil Önal.
Media in the Netherlands, Cyprus and Turkey also widely reported that Önal — a former financial advisor to slain northern Cypriot casino magnate Halil Falyalı — was the man assassinated in Rijswijk.
Witnesses described a brazen attack in daylight: “A man dressed in black” walked up to the victim on the hotel’s outdoor terrace and opened fire at point-blank range, one source told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, adding that an accomplice appeared to be waiting nearby.
An eyewitness quoted by local media said they heard three gunshots and then saw the gunman run off into a wooded area, a pistol still visible in his belt. Dutch authorities have assigned a team of 20 detectives to the case, treating the killing as an apparent hit-job.
From casino financier to whistleblower
Cemil Önal first came to prominence as the longtime head of finance for Falyalı, an infamous Turkish Cypriot businessman often described as the underworld “betting king” of northern Cyprus.
Falyalı, known for his opulent lifestyle and political connections, was shot dead near Kyrenia in February 2022 in an ambush that authorities suspect was linked to his criminal dealings.
In the trial in Turkey concerning Falyalı’s murder, prosecutors labeled Önal as “one of the masterminds” who orchestrated the hit.
An INTERPOL Red Notice was issued for Önal, after he fled Turkey, fearing for his life if captured.
Önal was arrested in the Netherlands in December 2023 on an INTERPOL warrant at Turkey’s request. The warrant portrayed him as the man “in charge of Falyalı’s money and finances” and a key plotter in Falyalı’s assassination.
Önal denied involvement in his former boss’s killing, instead painting himself as a scapegoat being persecuted for what he knew.
While jailed in a Dutch prison for 16 months during extradition proceedings, Önal began to speak out.
“I was not involved in Falyalı’s death,” he told journalists, insisting that Turkish authorities targeted him “because [I] knew too much about illicit payments made to powerful people.”
Dutch courts ultimately refused to extradite Önal to Turkey amid his claims that he would not survive in Turkish custody. He was released from detention in March 2025 to remain in the Netherlands pending further legal processes. Önal immediately sought to go public with his story. In a marathon series of exclusive interviews totaling over 20 hours, he became a whistleblower, detailing an alleged criminal enterprise that spanned Turkey, Cyprus, Malta and beyond.
Revelations of a cross-border crime network
In interviews with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and its partner media outlets, Önal described a sprawling illegal online betting and money-laundering network reportedly run by Halil Falyalı’s organization. According to Önal’s statements, the enterprise generated astronomical profits — at least $80 million per month — via dozens of unlicensed betting websites targeting gamblers worldwide. He claimed to have personally overseen the movement of these illicit proceeds through a complex web of bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, gold exchanges and front companies on multiple continents.
Önal told investigators that one of his key tasks was delivering bribes, euphemistically called “sponsorships,” to public officials who protected the scheme. He said roughly $15 million in cash was paid out each month to powerful figures in Turkey and in the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) — most of them members of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) or their associates. Some payoffs were allegedly funneled via jewelry shops and currency exchange offices to launder the transactions.
Önal directly implicated high-level Turkish politicians and officials in the operation. In testimony shared with Dutch and US authorities, he named former Turkish interior minister Süleyman Soylu and ex-vice president Fuat Oktay as being among recipients of the monthly payoffs. He alleged that Maksut Serim, a long-time aide to President Erdoğan, was rewarded for facilitating political cover: Falyalı’s group bought real estate from Serim’s family at hugely inflated prices as a form of a bribe, Önal claimed. Serim’s son Yasin Ekrem Serim would later become a figure in the unfolding saga.
Exposé on cache of blackmail tapes
Önal also shed light on a cache of 45 secret “blackmail tapes” that Falyalı had purportedly amassed — compromising recordings intended as leverage over powerful individuals. He told reporters and northern Cypriot newspaper Bugün Kıbrıs that these tapes contained explicit videos involving relatives of top figures in Erdoğan’s ruling party.
These tapes were also brought up by Turkish mob boss Sedat Peker, whose own series of bombshell exposés on YouTube in 2021 and 2022 rocked Turkey to the point, as claimed by many, of eliminating the future prospects of the up-and-coming Soylu, then-interior minister whose fiery nationalist rhetoric made him a popular figure among Erdoğan supporters and nationalist opposition alike.
Peker said at the time that after Falyalı’s killing, he got his hands on the trove of tapes, a claim many analysts dismissed as a bluff.
According to Önal, in mid-2024 Turkey’s leadership sent Yasin Ekrem Serim — the son of Erdoğan’s aide — to serve as ambassador to northern Cyprus on a mission to recover Falyalı’s hidden tapes.
By Önal’s account, Ambassador Serim retrieved 40 of the 45 recordings and delivered them to Ankara. However, the remaining five tapes went missing.
Önal claimed those missing tapes implicated the likes of Erkam Yıldırım, son of former prime minister Binali Yıldırım, and Halit Fidan, a relative of intelligence chief-turned-Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.
In an interview with Bugün Kıbrıs, Önal described Foreign Minister Fidan as having a direct interest in the fallout from Falyalı’s tapes. He alleged that Fidan, who for years headed Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT), was aware of and involved in the illicit Cyprus network and helped coordinate the operation to secure the blackmail files. Önal portrayed the ensuing scramble for the missing recordings as a drama reaching the very top of the Turkish state. At one point Erdoğan himself had to intervene, summoning Ambassador Serim to Ankara to demand answers about the tapes and warning of consequences if any were still out among the public.
Serim was accused of holding back some tapes for his own protection or profit. President Erdoğan eventually sacked Yasin Serim in February 2025, just seven months into his ambassadorship. Yasin’s father, Maksut Serim, was simultaneously dismissed from his advisory role, with no official reason given.
Turkey’s government has forcefully denied Önal’s claims, characterizing them as baseless slander. The Presidential Communications Directorate in Ankara blasted the corruption allegations as “fictitious” and “unfounded,” and the foreign ministry vowed to pursue legal action against those spreading them.
Former interior minister Soylu dismissed the accusations on social media, noting that INTERPOL had listed Önal as a murder suspect and suggesting his testimony was not credible. No Turkish officials have been formally implicated or charged in connection with Önal’s statements, and Erdoğan’s administration has largely avoided commenting directly on the specifics of the claims.
Önal was keenly aware of the danger he faced by turning whistleblower. After his release from custody in the Netherlands, he cautiously cooperated with law enforcement there and in the United States, reportedly handing over documents and evidence to Western intelligence agencies. Turkish media even speculated that Önal was under protection after providing information to the Dutch and American authorities. In April exiled Turkish investigative journalist Cevheri Güven publicized Önal’s claims, amplifying their impact and putting a spotlight on Ankara’s response.
In what would be his final interview, Önal spoke with Bugün Kıbrıs and expressed serious concern for his life. “I am a black box,” he warned, “and they will want to silence me.” He openly acknowledged the possibility he could be killed because of the secrets he held, according to the newspaper’s editor, Ayşemden Akın.
Just two days before Önal’s slaying, journalist Akın — who had published Önal’s bombshell revelations in Bugün Kıbrıs — received a 27-minute phone call from a Turkish number warning her to stop reporting on his interviews.
A woman on the line told Akın “I want to protect you” and delivered a chilling message: If the exposés continued, the journalist would be killed. The caller claimed that “three people have been on the island [Cyprus] for days to do what is necessary,” a thinly veiled threat that an assassination team was in place. Akın recorded the entire call and turned it over to the police in northern Cyprus. She later said the warnings only emphasized the validity of Önal’s assertions.
Opposition leaders accuse President Erdoğan’s government of enabling a “dirty network” of graft and illicit finance centered on northern Cyprus. Just last month in parliament, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Özgür Özel invoked Önal’s claims as he lambasted what he called a “filthy Cyprus-based corruption ring” involving ruling-party figures. Özel, referring to the trove of secret tapes, said: “All the filth has been exposed here. Now we are looking for a prosecutor who has the courage to investigate these people.” His remarks highlighted the dearth of independent prosecutors willing to take on politically sensitive cases in Turkey’s climate.
The Erdoğan administration’s response to the scandal has largely been to dismiss it and crack down on the messengers. After Önal’s interviews began circulating, Turkey’s interior ministry announced that it was investigating those allegations and threatened to prosecute what it termed “slander,” but so far no inquiry into the implicated officials has been made public. Instead, authorities in Ankara reiterated that Mustafa Söylemez, a convicted mobster, was the sole mastermind behind Falyalı’s 2022 murder — a narrative that pointedly excludes Önal’s claims about political complicity.
Önal’s murder in exile now raises new questions as to whether Turkish authorities had anything to do with the killing. Critics note that Turkey has a growing pattern of its dissidents, informants and political opponents being threatened or even attacked abroad.