Intermediaries are offering to arrange criminal cases in Turkey over alleged insults to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to bolster asylum claims in Germany, according to an investigation by the German Die Zeit weekly.
The alleged scheme involves bribing Turkish prosecutors to initiate proceedings that appear in the country’s judicial database, giving applicants verifiable records to support their asylum claims, Die Welt reported in its account of the investigation.
Intermediaries reportedly advertise through TikTok and Telegram, offering packages that include smuggling to Germany from €6,000.
According to the report, clients publish social media posts targeting President Erdoğan. A bribed prosecutor then allegedly uses the posts to open an investigation into insulting the president. The proceedings are registered in UYAP, the Justice Ministry’s electronic case management system.
Die Zeit reporters posing as prospective clients contacted several providers. One reportedly offered an investigation, a house search and an indictment for €800, claiming to have satisfied customers in Hamburg and Berlin.
Another warned that arranging such proceedings could cause serious problems if the applicant returned to Turkey.
The distinction is that these cases generate actual judicial records, rather than forged papers or counterfeit websites resembling UYAP. Turkish citizens can access their records through the government’s e-devlet (e-government) portal and sometimes display them on their phones during asylum interviews in Germany.
Patrick Schmidtke, an official at Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), told Die Zeit that asylum decision-makers were encountering numerous inconsistencies. BAMF said it assessed each application individually.
Kamil Taylan, a Frankfurt-based expert whose assessments of Turkish criminal proceedings are used in German asylum cases, warned that the suspected abuse could undermine the credibility of genuine applicants.
Asylum applications from Turkish nationals rose sharply following a coup attempt in July 2016 and the subsequent government crackdown on the faith-based Gülen movement and government critics.
Erdoğan’s government blames the Gülen movement, inspired by the late Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, for the July 2016 coup attempt. The movement denies involvement.
The ensuing crackdown has seen tens of thousands jailed and about 130,000 public employees dismissed over alleged links to the movement. Human rights groups have criticized the use of lawful activities, including bank deposits and contact with affiliated institutions, as evidence of terrorist organization membership.
The crackdown drove many alleged Gülen movement supporters, including teachers, journalists and former public employees, to flee Turkey and seek asylum abroad, particularly in Germany. Some escaped through irregular routes across the Greek border.
BAMF figures show that first-time applications increased from 1,500 in 2015 to 5,383 in 2016 and 8,027 in 2017.
The number reached 61,181 in 2023 before falling to 29,177 in 2024 and 11,919 in 2025, according to BAMF’s statistics. Turkey remained the third-largest source of first-time applicants in 2025, behind Afghanistan and Syria.
The allegations arise against a backdrop of documented political repression. Human Rights Watch has reported continuing prosecutions and imprisonment of perceived Gülen movement supporters, Kurdish political activists, journalists and other government critics.
Presidential insult charges are widely used against Erdoğan’s critics, including ordinary social media users. Article 299 of Turkey’s penal code carries a prison sentence of one to four years, increased by one-sixth if the offense is committed in public. Human Rights Watch has condemned the use of the provision against peaceful criticism.
Concerns about manufactured evidence in asylum cases also predate Die Zeit’s reporting. In a post on X, international law scholar Emre Turkut pointed to a February 13 ruling by the Administrative Court of Gelsenkirchen addressing proceedings allegedly arranged to support asylum applications.
Aşağıda detayları aktarılan Die Zeit haberi (linki ekteki twitte) yeni bir durum arz etmiyor, sahte ve düzmece belgeler yoluyla iltica başvuruları uzun zamandır Alman idari ve yargı mercilerinin kararlarına konu oluyor.
En somut mahkeme kararlarından bir örnek: Gelsenkirchen… https://t.co/KvKISSq69P pic.twitter.com/JFhIe7JzJV
— Emre Turkut (@emreturkut) October 19, 2026
In that judgment the court cited an expert report describing services that obtain indictments through corrupt prosecutors. Such indictments can be legally authentic and visible in UYAP even when the proceedings were arranged to create evidence of persecution.
The court said a verifiable indictment for insulting the president or spreading terrorist propaganda did not, by itself, establish eligibility for asylum. It dismissed the applicant’s challenge after examining his circumstances. The judgment does not establish how widespread the alleged practice is.
German courts have separately recognized genuine persecution risks in Turkish criminal cases. In November 2025 the Administrative Court of Sigmaringen granted refugee status to a Turkish national previously convicted over alleged Gülen movement links, finding that he faced renewed prosecution and politically motivated targeting.
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