The US Justice Department on July 9 asked a federal court to dismiss a NATO-linked bribery case that had initially prompted the arrest of a Turkish defense contractor executive held in Belgium who was released two days after the probe shut down, according to a cross-border investigation by Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition and its international partners.
DW worked with outlets including Belgium’s Knack and Le Soir, France’s La Lettre, the Netherlands-based Follow the Money and Switzerland’s Tamedia group.
DW said İsmail Terlemez, the founder of Ankara-based ARCA Defense, was detained at Brussels Zaventem Airport in May in a probe run by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS). Investigators were looking into alleged corruption at the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), a Luxembourg-based body that manages joint purchasing and logistics for member states on a no-profit basis.
On the same day, Swiss authorities arrested Scott Everett Willason, an American who previously worked at the agency. Both men were freed after prosecutors moved to drop the case, writing that continued prosecution would not serve the interests of justice.
The same day the Terlemez case was dropped, DW reported that a second corruption probe at the NATO agency, focused on naval logistics and involving different suspects, was also dropped by US prosecutors, while Romanian authorities continued their own investigation. Former Justice Department officials interviewed by DW called the coincidence unusual but did not state a motive.
The Justice Department declined further comment beyond the filing.
DW, citing case documents, reported that prosecutors had alleged Terlemez helped steer a 2019 trinitrotoluene (TNT) procurement toward an Italian company while he served as a technical officer in the agency’s ammunition support partnership program. More than €1 million went to a Luxembourg consultancy tied to Willason, the reporting said, including about €116,000 that allegedly reached Terlemez between 2019 and 2020. Willason’s lawyer called the accusations wrong and baseless and noted that all charges were dropped after review.
ARCA Defense and Terlemez did not respond to DW’s requests for comment.
The timing drew scrutiny because the dismissals came about two weeks after a June 24 meeting between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and US President Donald Trump ahead of a NATO summit. DW said NATO confirmed that its procurement arm had cooperated with national authorities but would not discuss ongoing matters. DW’s reporting partners in Belgium asked Turkey’s NATO permanent representative, Başat Öztürk, whether Terlemez’s name came up at the meeting, receiving no answer.
Fast-growing supplier in Turkey’s arms sector
DW and other outlets reported that ARCA Defense was founded in August 2020 shortly after Terlemez left the NATO procurement agency. Turkey’s president inaugurated the company’s factory in Çorum in 2022. Company records show that Savaş Balçık, a former district chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), briefly held a stake. Lawmakers from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) and the nationalist opposition İYİ (Good) Party have filed questions in parliament about ARCA’s contracts, including an unverified claim that a separate firm, NEPSA, secured a 25-year commitment to supply 120 million rounds to the state-owned Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKE) before disappearing from the records. ARCA’s paid-in capital rose from 1 million lira, about $130,000 at the time, to roughly 150 million lira, about $5 million, in less than four years.
Local media also reported a land deal in Ankara tied to ARCA in which an industrial plot’s valuation dropped from 149.5 million lira, about $8.3 million, to 54.9 million lira, about $3 million, one day before the sale. The change triggered tax and prosecutorial complaints that alleged a public loss of about 75 million lira, about $4 million. The site is being developed to produce artillery shells for Ukraine.
How Turkish rounds reached Ukraine
DW’s partners reported that France, Greece and Cyprus vetoed direct NATO purchases involving Turkey. ARCA instead entered the supply chain through US contracts. The Arab Weekly reported that the US Army bought about 116,000 artillery rounds from ARCA in 2024, with some later shipped to Ukraine. The Biden administration expanded emergency procurement to refill stocks and support Ukraine’s supply, creating demand for ammunition from allied producers. DW said ARCA has since signed export contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars and scaled up production at its Çorum plant.
DW said they asked Terlemez and ARCA whether his departure from the NATO agency was linked to an internal inquiry, what role he played in the 2019 explosives tender and what services justified the roughly €115,000 to €116,000 that allegedly passed through Willason’s consultancy. They also asked whether any Turkish political involvement played a role in the US dismissals, for details on the alleged long-term deal to supply the state arms company and for an explanation of ARCA’s fast-rising capital.