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Thirteen suspects detained last Friday in a joint operation by intelligence, police and gendarmerie were behind a plot to kill Aziz Ihsan Aktaş, a prominent businessperson who collaborated with authorities to explain corruption in municipalities run by the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). The allegation emerged in a report by the Sabah newspaper on Sunday and named Fatih Keleş, a detained suspect and former employee of Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB), as the person who orchestrated the plot.
Keleş, former chair of IBB’s sports club, was among dozens of people detained and arrested in March alongside Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu on corruption charges. He and others are accused of taking bribes, extortion and other graft-related charges. Prosecutors portray him as the man overseeing the delivery of cash illicitly gained by a criminal network allegedly led by Imamoğlu.
Istanbul’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office had issued arrest warrants for 13 suspects last week, including Selahattin Yılmaz, an underworld figure who was reportedly contracted to kill Aktaş.
Aktaş was a well-known figure for winning public tenders from municipalities across Türkiye. He was apprehended in an operation targeting alleged corruption in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district. The operation in January led to the arrest of Beşiktaş mayor for CHP Rıza Akpolat. After his arrest, Aktaş invoked a remorse law, offering lenient sentences and sometimes house arrest for collaborators in critical investigations. Since then, he has testified several times to prosecutors in Istanbul, uncovering a far-reaching network of corruption in CHP-run municipalities. His confessions eventually triggered an inquiry into Imamoğlu. After the arrest of Imamoğlu and top bureaucrats of IBB, Aktaş testified twice more, leading to new waves of operations that mostly concentrated on Istanbul’s CHP-run district municipalities, which were allegedly involved in bribery schemes.
The report by the Sabah newspaper states that Aktaş was the target of a plot to silence him, as he had revealed the names of more people involved in corruption investigations. In Friday’s operations, Yılmaz, his son and two lawyers were detained in Istanbul, Ankara, Antalya, Muğla and Samsun along with other suspects. Weapons, rifles and a large cache of munitions were found in their possession. Keleş was already acquainted with Yılmaz and had contacted him through his lawyer, according to the Sabah report. The lawyer relayed Keleş’s message to silence Aktaş to Yılmaz after a recent prison visit. Keleş’s lawyer delivered the message to Yılmaz through the latter’s lawyer, who was also detained in Friday’s operation.
Aktaş has yet to present his defense in the ongoing trials against Imamoğlu and Akpolat, and Keleş allegedly sought to prevent him from appearing before the court and deter others in the case from cooperating with the authorities. Several businesspeople and municipality bureaucrats have already confessed to corruption in CHP-run municipalities in exchange for lenient sentences.
After the plot was revealed, authorities ordered the relocation of Aktaş, who was sentenced to house arrest last June and provided him with a security detail.
According to details of the investigation into Yılmaz revealed by Sabah, the suspect was already involved in the extortion of several businesspeople.
Keleş is portrayed as Imamoğlu’s “bagman,” and investigators allege Keleş granted businesspeople preferential treatment in tenders, collected “commissions” from contractors seeking payments from the municipality to speed up the payment process and transferred properties acquired through bribes to favored businesspeople.
According to investigators, bribes secured from business figures were allegedly funneled through companies linked to Imamoğlu’s associates, enriching him personally. Prosecutors say tenders for IBB-owned outdoor advertising spaces consistently went to the same firms, with bribe money delivered in cash to Keleş and Vedat Şahin, described as another bagman. Surveillance photos reportedly show the pair entering meetings carrying bags filled with cash.
The investigation also includes footage from the purchase of the Istanbul provincial headquarters of the CHP. Videos show Keleş and Tuncay Yılmaz, general manager of a construction company owned by Imamoğlu’s family, counting stacks of cash delivered in suitcases. Keleş was filmed counting money himself, later telling investigators: “A portion of funds collected during the campaign was given to me to deliver to the seller. I handed the money to Deputy Provincial Chair Özgür Nas at a law office, as instructed.”
The CHP has insisted that the huge stacks of money captured on camera were acquired through donations for the new party building in Istanbul, amid public outcry over the source of the cash.
Aktaş, a man whose business interests and companies are as diverse as the municipalities he has worked for, ranging from catering to pesticides and gas stations, gained notoriety when his name surfaced in an operation targeting the Beşiktaş municipality on charges of tender-rigging, bribery and money laundering.
Authorities froze his assets and seized control of his companies. At first, he denied the accusations. But in later statements in April and May 2025, Aktaş sought a plea deal.
In his testimony, Aktaş claimed that irregularities occurred in tenders at the municipalities of Beşiktaş, Avcılar, Beyoğlu in Istanbul, Seyhan and Ceyhan municipalities in the southern province of Adana, as well as in the IBB subsidiaries IETT and ISFALT. He alleged that mayors and deputy mayors pressured him for payments in exchange for winning tenders. In some cases, he was forced to buy properties or vehicles owned by municipalities or mayors and their associates at inflated prices, as part of a scheme to conceal the source of bribes.
Based on his testimony, fresh waves of operations were launched beginning May 31, leading to the arrest of several CHP mayors and senior officials. Among those detained were Gaziosmanpaşa Mayor Hakan Bahçetepe, Avcılar Mayor Utku Caner Çaykara, Ceyhan Mayor Kadir Aydar, Seyhan Mayor Oya Tekin, IBB Deputy Secretary General Erdal Celal Aksoy, and ISFALT General Manager Burak Korzay.
