The details of the operation carried out in June targeting the commercial and military espionage network, which came onto the radar of the inspectors of the Ministry of Trade, were accessed.
The military and commercial espionage activity came to light when defense industry firms noticed that their data was featured on overseas websites and reported it to the Ministry of Trade. These companies and organizations, which include leading defense industry companies such as TOBB, the Turkish Exporters Assembly and Aselsan, filed complaints on the individuals who played a role in leaking this data abroad.
Upon the leaking of import and export data belonging to companies in Türkiye, which are kept in the servers of the Ministry of Trade, in exchange for paid membership, the Ministry of Trade immediately took action.
Inspectors identified that data related to the "Decision Support System" (DSS) within the Ministry of Trade and the "Bilge" system were shared. Customs employees who downloaded the data were identified one by one. It was revealed that the Telegram group named "Foreign Trade Intelligence," where the information was found to be sold, was detected by personnel of the General Directorate of Customs Protection, affiliated with the Ministry, infiltrating the group for intelligence purposes. Customs Protection and Smuggling Intelligence units exposed the commercial espionage activities carried out between 2023-2025 with the infiltration action they carried out.
Information related to data that needs to remain under commercial and military secrecy, related to a large number of products developed by ASELSAN, such as drum-fed grenade launchers, automatic grenade launchers, and machine guns, was found to be marketed in companies with large databases in the Far East.It was discovered in the investigation of the bank accounts of Gülsen B., who carried out marketing on Telegram, that approximately 65 thousand lira of money was transferred from a manager named Mustafa K., who worked as an import-export sales director.
It was determined that Mustafa K. had a money transaction of 7 thousand dollars with an overseas-based data storage company in his previous bank transactions.
The suspects denied the accusation of "disclosing information that should remain confidential for the security of the state and political benefits" in their statements.
