Turkey’s intelligence and security authorities have exposed a network of 14 members cooperating with Iranian intelligence to abduct Iranian opposition members on Turkish soil.
On Friday, Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) uncovered another plot directed by Iran to assassinate an Israeli-Turkish businessperson using a network of alleged hitmen.
Yair Geller, an Istanbul-based tycoon with investments in the machine and defense industries was the target of the nine-person network following his every move.
According to Anadolou Agency, the MIT arrested two Iranian nationals and 12 Turks who were referred to prosecution authorities.
Arrest warrants were issued for three fugitive Iranians.
Turkey's official Anadolou news agency Friday relayed information from Turkish intelligence that an Iranian national among the detainees, whom it named as Morteza Soltan-Sanjari, had worked for Ihsan Saglam, a Turkish national who owns By Saglam defense company.
The report alleged that one of the Iranian intelligence officers had offered $1 million to Soltan-Sanjari and Saglam for the capture of ‘MR,’ an Iranian naval officer who had deserted. Hakan Saglam, another member of the alleged plot, had located MR and promised to smuggle him to the United States.
But the report also said the 14 kidnappers were paid $150,000 for each operation. It named Yaghoub Hafez, an Iranian colonel, as someone successfully rendered to Tehran.
Anadolou alleged that Ihsan Saglam had tortured the person who later smuggled Hafez out of Turkey to force them to locate the colonel in Denizli province, western Turkey. Hafez was told that he was wanted by Iran, could be smuggled through Iraq to a “safe country,” but was then instead taken in February 2019 back to Iran.
The discovery of this cell came hours after it was revealed that Turkish authorities had succeeded in arresting members of an Iranian cell consisting of nine elements that had planned to assassinate Geller.
The planned hit was to be a retaliation for the killing of Iranian nuclear chief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020, widely attributed to Israel’s Mossad, the reports said, as well as a means to hinder warming relations between Ankara and Jerusalem.
