Turkish prosecutors have charged a group of young computer users with stealing and selling government database records, including the identity numbers of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and several ministers, according to an indictment cited by a Cumhuriyet newspaper columnist on Thursday.
According to Cumhuriyet’s Barış Terkoğlu the indictment, numbered 2022/13270, lists 20 defendants, seven of them between the ages of 18 and 22 at the time of the alleged offenses. Thirteen additional suspects were minors and were referred to juvenile court. Prosecutors say the network gained unauthorized access to platforms run by the interior, health and education ministries, the Council of Higher Education, the Student Selection and Placement Center, police, insurance companies and municipal registries.
The revelation comes amid heightened scrutiny over the security of country’s digital infrastructure after a recent court case with more than 200 suspects showed a 35-member gang cloned electronic signatures of key officials to generate a wide range of documents for profit.
According to Terkoğlu, prosecutors accuse the defendants of using stolen credentials and custom “checker” programs to pull Turkish citizens’ full identity profiles, academic transcripts, medical prescriptions, police background reports and property records; alter school grades, mark living persons as deceased in population files and issue fraudulent drug prescriptions and vehicle policies; and sell look-ups and record changes through subscription websites.
Chat logs cited in the indictment show one suspect offering to “prepare any sick-leave report you need” in exchange for payment. Another message contains a file that prosecutors say lists Erdoğan’s name, surname and 11-digit identity number, along with similar information for several ministers.
The alleged intrusion was discovered after a private citizen filed a tip with the Presidential Communications Center (CİMER) in 2021. Authorities began making arrests in April 2022. The main suspects face charges of unauthorized system access and trafficking in personal data, crimes that carry prison terms of up to 15 years.
The court case echoes an earlier controversy involving journalist İbrahim Haskoloğlu, who was arrested in April 2022 after he tweeted obscured images he said were Erdoğan’s and intelligence chief Hakan Fidan’s identity cards, claiming that the information was in circulation online. Authorities called those images fake and later sought a 12-year sentence against Haskoloğlu for distributing personal data.