“Bourse FETO” is a phenomenon Turkey became familiar with during the heights of judicial operations targeting the Gulenists.

A bourse is a bourse, where goods are exchanged and prices are set. FETO refers to the so-called Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation, a name coined by Turkey’s government in its fight against the clan and ally-turned-foe led by the late preacher Fethullah Gulen. Gulen was between 2002 and 2012 among the stakeholders of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Judicial operations against Turkey’s then military tutelage regime were conducted between 2007 and 2013 by a triangle of Gulenist police officers, prosecutors and judges. The referendum to amend the constitution in 2010, which handed the top judiciary to the AKP regime, marked the end of the tutelage regime.

Gangs sent to extort

After the elimination of the tutelage regime, a fight erupted between Gulen and then PM, now president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With the failed coup attempt in 2016, Erdogan gained the upper hand and took the Gulenists who conducted the operations against the tutelage regime under his wing. He then utilised them against the Gulen loyalists.

While super-empowered prosecutors hunted Gulen loyalists up and down the country, rumours started to surface about gangs sent by prosecutors and mafia to extort money from businessmen.

They simply approached businessmen and told them that they would add their names to the prosecution list held against Gulenists if they did not pay a sum deemed sufficient in relation to their financial size.

On the other hand, actual leading Gulenists in the business world paid bribes and skipped prosecution.

Fettah Tamince, owner of Rixos Hotels, is the most famous Gulenist businessman to have skipped any judicial consequences. What's more, a child was killed in a hotel of his. The file was closed.

The market being described here is “Bourse FETO”.

Izmir arm exposed

The Izmir arm of Bourse FETO was entirely exposed. Ahmet Kurtulus was a member of the ring. After he ended up in jail, he threatened his accomplices with the prospect of him turning state witness.

He was then released from jail to house arrest, at which point he was executed in the doorway of his home in front of his children.

The Peker connection

An interesting note on Kurtulus is that he was a close friend of Sedat “The Botox” Peker, the notorious and colourful Turkish gangster who remains in “digital isolation” in the UAE. Peker was pushed to talk about the Kurtulus case. However, he stalled and managed to avoid responding to calls.

Peker lately returned to the ranks of his first political party, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). There is not a single political party in Turkey, including the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), that Peker has not joined, or at least flirted with.

Peker is a top joker to the Operation Gladio figures in Turkey who have held leading political and bureaucratic posts in the country (from positions in state and terrorist organisations to places in the media and business world) since the Cold War.

“Bourse FETO” trial

Serkan Kurtulus, a paramilitary gang leader who served in the “non-civil” war in Syria, has confirmed that he organised the assassination of namesake Ahmet Kurtulus. They were not relatives, just accomplices.

A prison in Argentina currently serves as home to Serkan Kurtulus. He earned a reputation for talking too much to the press – and threatening to talk some more. Of late, he’s been silent.

Okan Bato, a prosecutor who conducted operations against Gulenists in Izmir, retired. He was tried and received a two-year prison sentence. In Turkey, prison sentences under five years have not been executed since the covid pandemic.

Izmir is far from the only “Bourse” case. It is simply that as it became the location of a trial, it became the most well-known “market”.

“Bourse IBB,” aka “Bourse Ekrem”

Sorry for the verbiage, but by now it should be clear how these markets work. The new market is known as “Bourse IBB”. The IBB in question is Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyesi, or Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality.

According to Baris Terkoglu, a local journalist, it is also known as “Bourse Ekrem”, referencing jailed Istanbul mayor and main political rival to Erdogan, Ekrem Imamoglu.

However, the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Ozgur Ozel chooses to call it “Bourse IBB” and that has become its more common name. Imamoglu himself has referred to the market as the “Conspiracy Bourse of IBB”.

Since Imamoglu was put behind bars in mid-March, the exact same ex-Gulenists who conducted the operations against the military tutelage regime and their previous Gulenist friends and allies have been deployed for the new operations.

Mucahit Birinci, scapegoat

On August 14, Ozel claimed that Mucahit Birinci, a lawyer and an AKP official, asked Murat Kapki, a suspect in the Imamoglu investigation, to pay $2mn and turn state witness against Imamoglu in exchange for release from jail.

Kapki said Ozel's claims were correct. Birinci has confirmed that he is a lawyer of Kapki and Kapki.

After Ozel made his claims, AKP officials and media trolls targeted Birinci. He then quit the party. The current stance of the Erdogan apparatus suggests that Birinci was a problem, but it is solved now.

And there’s more

Ozel has also targeted another lawyer, namely Mehmet Yildirim, for conducting “Bourse IBB” operations. And more claims related to the new market are also in circulation.

Lately, there’s been something of a slaughter of the lawyers, with some Erdogan-administration associated legal representatives targeted. Rezan Epozdemir is one of those recently jailed.

Rival gangs accused Mehmet Ucum, an aide to Erdogan, of attempting to release Epozdemir. Epozdemir remains in jail.

Muhammed Vefa (@muhammed_vefaa), a journalist close to Erdogan’s former party, currently called Saadet, claimed that Birinci was made a scapegoat to curtail the Epozdemir case.

Business as usual

All of this, of course, is business as usual in Turkey. The gangs that make up much of the Erdogan regime regularly jostle. These events definitely do not indicate that the regime is falling apart.

Instances of judges bought for comical sums in Turkey are not limited to the Gulenist or Imamoglu cases. In 2023, bne IntelliNews reported on the “bribe tariff”. You can update the lira figures with the USD/TRY exchange rate if you need to bargain your case.

After “Bourse IBB” tales became a regular thing, some stories began to suggest the existence of a “Bourse Bursa”. Alas, there’s no time for that now.