Turkish police on Wednesday detained Sertaç Taşdelen, the founder of Faladdin, an AI-powered fortune-telling app, as part of a probe labelling his gains earned through paid divination services as illicit revenue, Turkish media reported.
A criminal court seized his bank and electronic-money accounts, vehicles and shares in Arteria Yazılım, the company behind Faladdin and its older sister app, Binnaz.
Both apps offer fortune-telling to users who upload photos of their coffee cups, inspired by a Turkish tradition. The concept is broadly defined as “Tasseography,” a fortune-telling method that interprets patterns in tea leaves, coffee grounds or wine sediment.
Called “fal” in Turkish, the practice dates back to Ottoman coffeehouses and remains a staple at many family gatherings. Taşdelen’s project put that folk practice onto smartphones, turning photos and pattern-matching software into a global subscription business that venture investors cite when touting İstanbul’s consumer-app scene.
Faladdin’s website lists 50 million downloads and about 430,000 user reviews on Apple and Google stores, with an average rating of 4.7 out of 5.
Store descriptions add that the service has more than 25 million registered users, roughly 5 million active each month and about 1 million readings a day. Marketing material says customers log in from 112 countries in Turkish, Arabic and English.
Taşdelen, 42, studied business at Bilkent University and worked at Ernst & Young in Dubai before turning a family pastime into a startup. He launched Binnaz, named for his mother, in 2012 and introduced Faladdin in 2017, using an in-house language engine to automate readings of photos that users upload of coffee cup grounds.
A 2020 Rest of World profile called Taşdelen a founder who styled himself after Aladdin’s genie, ran a million-dollar annual ad budget and topped Google Play’s lifestyle chart ahead of Tinder in Turkey. At that point Faladdin had logged more than 20 million downloads and was expanding into Gulf markets.
The same report noted that users typically receive an interpretation within minutes. Writers, editors and psychologists craft the text, though Faladdin markets the workflow as artificial intelligence that mixes tasseography, tarot and astrology. Daily demand already exceeded 1 million cups, a figure repeated in recent store updates.
Prosecutors say that revenue model may fall under qualified fraud as defined by the Turkish Penal Code.
Court files cite a Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK) report, a Trade Ministry advertising-board audit and an expert opinion that Faladdin generated “crime proceeds” by selling fortune-telling, astrology and medium services, then moved part of the earnings offshore.
The court order covers Taşdelen’s cash holdings, vehicles, boats and all equity in Arteria Yazılım.
Paid fortune-telling occupies a legal grey zone in Turkey. Law No. 677 of 1925, which closed dervish lodges, also bans professional fortune telling, but this is rarely enforced. Article 158 of the Turkish Penal Code defines financial gains made “by exploiting the religious beliefs and emotions of a person” as aggravated fraud, punishable by three to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 500,000 lira ($13,000 at the time of publication).
Taşdelen has faced courtrooms before. In 2023 an art gallery sued him for alleged trademark infringement, and prosecutors sought a three-year sentence for a “stolen name,” though no verdict has been announced.
Although fortune tellers are rarely prosecuted, paid services now draw fiscal scrutiny. In a 2022 interview a legal scholar told the Hürriyet Daily News that cafés offering paid readings could be penalized under Law 677 for charging customers.