The Kayseri Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued detention warrants for 14 businessmen as part of an investigation targeting people linked to the Gülen movement, which is accused by the Turkish government of masterminding a failed coup attempt on July 15, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported on Wednesday.
Six of the 14 businessmen were detained in operations in İstanbul, Adana and Samsun as well as Kayseri. The businessmen are accused of transferring money to the movement’s organizations abroad via Bank Asya, a Gülen-linked lender, and providing financial support to the Gülen movement.
Dozens of other businessmen, including many from the Kayseri-based Boydak Holding, were also sent to jail due to alleged Gülen links following the July 15 coup attempt.
Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has seized a total of 942 companies with a total value of TL 40.5 billion since the failed coup attempt, according to a statement made at the end of May by Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli in response to a parliamentary question from Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Atila Sertel.
Canikli said eight of these 942 companies seized by the government were the following holdings: Naksan, Hasırcı, Boydak, Koza-İpek, Dumankaya, Kaynak, Akla and Akfel, under which 234 companies operated.
The total equity capital of the seized companies is TL 18.1 billion, while their combined turnover was TL 21.5 billion, according to a report by Turkey’s state-run Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF).
The number of employees in the seized companies is 44,868.
The Turkish government has been confiscating the private property of non-loyalist businesspeople without due process on unsubstantiated charges of terrorist links.
The companies are allegedly connected to the Gülen movement, with the government coining the term “FETÖ” to designate the movement as a terrorist organization despite the lack of any court verdict to that effect.
Fethullah Gülen, who inspired the movement, strongly denied having any role in the failed coup and called for an international investigation into it, but President Erdoğan — calling the coup attempt “a gift from God” — and the government initiated a widespread purge aimed at cleansing sympathizers of the movement from within state institutions, dehumanizing its popular figures and putting them in custody.
According to a report by the state-run Anadolu news agency on May 28, 154,694 individuals have been detained and 50,136 have been jailed due to alleged Gülen links since the failed coup attempt.