A Turkish court on Friday ordered the arrest of 13 people previously detained in connection with a probe into Antiochia Künefe, a popular dessert chain accused of financing the faith-based Gülen movement, the TR724 news website reported.
The arrests follow Monday’s coordinated police raids across five provinces during which 33 suspects were detained. The operation, led by the İzmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in collaboration with the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), was initiated after an investigation into the chain’s financial records allegedly revealed links to the movement.
Prosecutors claim that digital materials seized in previous operations revealed a money trail linked to Antiochia Künefe’s business operations. Authorities confiscated 100,000 Turkish lira ($2,500) in cash, 33 gold coins and various digital files and documents.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been targeting followers of the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen, since the corruption investigations of 2013, which implicated then-prime minister Erdoğan, 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 following an abortive putsch in July of the same year that he accused Gülen of masterminding. The movement strongly denies involvement in the coup attempt or any terrorist activity.
The recent arrests are part of a broader campaign by Turkish authorities to dismantle what they describe as the movement’s “current structure,” often targeting businesses, educators, journalists and civil society groups. Human rights organizations and Western governments have repeatedly voiced concern over Ankara’s use of counterterrorism laws to stifle dissent and punish perceived political opponents.
According to a statement from Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç ahead of the eighth anniversary of the coup attempt last July, a total of 705,172 people have been investigated since the failed coup on terrorism or coup-related charges due to their alleged links to the movement. Tunç said at the time that there were 13,251 people in prison in pretrial detention or convicted of terrorism in Gülen-linked trials.
These figures are thought to have increased over the past 10 months since the operations targeting Gülen followers continue unabated. Erdoğan and several government ministers said on many occasions that there would be no “slackening” in the fight against the movement following the cleric’s death at 83.
A report last year titled “Persecutory Confiscation Amounting to Crimes Against Humanity: Case of the Gülen Group” exposed the vast scale of property confiscations in Turkey targeting the movement, with an estimated value of $50 billion and affecting over 1.5 million people in what the authors call systematic and widespread violations of domestic and international law that amount to “crimes against humanity.”