Seven employees from two opposition-run district municipalities in İstanbul have been detained as part of an expanding corruption investigation into alleged irregularities in public tenders, local media reported on Wednesday.
Police from the financial crimes unit carried out early-morning raids in the Beşiktaş and Avcılar municipalities, detaining seven members of a commission overseeing tenders. Five of the detainees work at the Beşiktaş Municipality and two at Avcılar, both governed by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The state-run Anadolu news agency said they were accused of involvement in irregularities in public tenders.
The latest detentions follow the earlier arrest of Beşiktaş Mayor Rıza Akpolat and Avcılar Mayor Utku Caner Çaykara, who were jailed and suspended from office as part of the same probe.
The investigation centers on businessman Aziz İhsan Aktaş, initially arrested as the alleged ringleader of a network accused of bribery, bid rigging and laundering illicit assets. He later cooperated with prosecutors under Turkey’s “effective remorse” law, securing his release, although investigators have frozen assets tied to companies linked to him. His testimony has triggered successive waves of operations, with opposition figures noting that while Aktaş was freed and reportedly granted protection, his statements have led to the arrest of dozens of CHP officials.
Case files cited in local coverage say that before the latest detentions, Aktaş’s testimony had led to warrants for 47 suspects, including senior municipal staff and five district mayors from the CHP. Twenty-two of those suspects, including the five mayors, are jailed pending trial.
Prosecutors say threats against witnesses who cooperated with the investigation are being pursued under a separate inquiry.
The probes into CHP-run municipalities began in October 2024 with the arrest of Esenyurt Mayor Kemal Deniz Bozkurt and have since expanded to cover district municipalities across İstanbul and Adana.
The developments come in the wake of the CHP’s sweeping victory in the March 2024 local elections, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) suffered its worst electoral defeat in two decades, losing control of key cities to the opposition.
İstanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, seen as a leading challenger to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the next presidential election, was arrested on corruption charges on March 23, the same day he was declared his party’s presidential candidate. His detention sparked nationwide protests, marking the largest wave of unrest in Turkey in more than a decade.
Opposition leaders and rights groups have accused Erdoğan’s government of using judicial pressure to suppress political rivals and roll back democratic gains made by opposition-held local governments.