Turkey crackdown on police‑impersonation, gold and smuggling frauds

Police‑impersonation scammers in Bursa held an elderly couple under psychological pressure for 2½ months and extracted roughly 100 million TL in cash, foreign currency, jewelry and property. In Istanbul, a phone‑scam ring pretended to be police, convinced an 83‑year‑old former banker to hand over 1 758 gold coins worth around 72 million TL; five suspects were arrested. In Adana, a network that posed as “Muhammet Hoca”, promising to break curses and perform love spells, extracted thousands of lira from victims; five members were detained, four of whom were jailed. A nationwide fake‑gold operation coordinated by the Kahramanmaraş prosecutor’s office targeted ten provinces, seized about 150 million TL worth of counterfeit gold, molds, weapons and ammunition, and placed 67 suspects in custody. Separate raids in Sakarya uncovered a home‑based synthetic cannabinoid (bonzai) lab, confiscating dozens of grams of the substance; one man was sentenced to prison, the other released on judicial control. Customs‑evading networks in İzmir and Kocaeli were also dismantled, leading to seven arrests and the seizure of smuggled electronics, a firearm and low‑karat gold. Overall, dozens of coordinated police operations across Turkey resulted in more than 100 arrests and the disruption of multiple high‑value fraud and smuggling schemes.