FETÖ dispatched 31 ships to search for Erdoğan on July 15

Yeni Şafak daily obtained exclusive information divulging the details of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization’s (FETÖ) plans for the failed coup on July 15, 2016. Various ships, which were under the control of FETÖ terrorists placed in the Naval Forces, were ordered to be prepared to take action in the early hours of the morning.

Thirty-one combat ships left a port on July 15, before martial law was decreed. The ships were grouped into three, and some went to find Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, whereas some moved into the İzmir Gulf, and the Dardanelles and the Bosporus straits.

It was found that the Istanbul Bosporus was closed to sea traffic between 9 p.m. on July 15 and 9 a.m. on July 16 and that the combat ships fired shots from Istanbul’s Moda in order to frighten people during the hours between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m.

If the coup attempt had succeeded, President Erdogan, his close circle, figures from politics, business and media and anti-FETÖ soldiers and bureaucrats would have been taken out to the open sea. Domestically, the putschists were going to say that Erdoğan fled abroad in order to damage his reputation.

President Erdoğan was the top political target of the coup. In line with this, in the early hours of the failed attempt, news that Erdoğan had fled to Germany spread on social media and among the public. While a team was sent to coastal district of Marmaris to retrieve Erdoğan from where he was staying, the ship that would host the president was ready near the Aksaz Naval Base.

Erdoğan, who was going to be brought from Marmaris, was going to be kept on a ship while black propaganda was spread among the public. After gaining control in Turkey, FETÖ was going to say that Erdoğan was captured and brought back into the public’s eye as the “fleeing leader.”

The last 10 years of log records were analyzed. It was discovered that FETÖ terrorists changed telephone numbers registered in the system after 2015. About one million GSM numbers, including FETÖ terrorists’ own numbers and those of their relatives, were analyzed. It was found that there was a FETÖ terrorist who installed ByLock on the phone of his 80-year-old grandmother, and another who used a number registered to a shepherd.

In the navy, more than 90 percent of the majors and superiors of FETÖ have been discharged. The discharge rate for majors and their inferiors is 20 percent. A separate matrix was developed and implemented for the detection of crypto FETÖ terrorists who are ranked as majors and for inferior ranks.

The criteria that is currently used to expose crypto FETÖ terrorists has reached 67 basic criteria and 239 sub-criteria. These criteria range from how the staff registers and chooses appointment preferences to areas the organization prioritizes, Bank Asya accounts, the identity of their PhD supervisor, and exam results.

FETÖ terrorists are led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gülen, who orchestrated Turkey's July 15 coup attempt and is the mastermind behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

Since the failed coup, operations have been ongoing in the military, police and judiciary as well as in state institutions across the country to arrest suspects with alleged links to FETÖ.