The Turkish criminal gang known as the Daltons may have been involved in the arson attack on a Starlink satellite ground station in the village of Wola Krobowska in Poland’s Masovian province, Der Spiegel reported, citing sources.
The ground station caught fire on September 23. Polish authorities called the fire a deliberate act of sabotage and blamed Russia. According to Spiegel, Russian intelligence services may have hired the Daltons to carry out the attack.
On October 12, two Turkish citizens suspected of involvement in the arson attack were arrested in the German town of Nürtingen at Poland’s request. Spiegel identified the men as 38-year-old Ümit E. and 34-year-old Müslüm T. The outlet said they likely belong to the Daltons — or at least may have acted at the direction of the gang’s supporters.
A court in Stuttgart is expected to decide in the coming days whether to extradite the two men to Poland.
Spiegel reported that Russian intelligence services have so far relied primarily on “low-level agents,” such as petty criminals who took on jobs for small amounts of money, to carry out sabotage in Europe. If it is confirmed that Daltons supporters were involved in the arson attack on the Starlink terminal in Poland, that would signal a shift in Russian intelligence strategy, the outlet said.
The Daltons gang was formed in 2024. According to the Azerbaijani news site Haqqin.az, its members were mostly young people born in 2000 or later. In Turkey, the Daltons were involved in the killing of Serdar Öktem, a prominent lawyer and member of the Nationalist Movement Party, who was shot dead in his car in Istanbul. Gang members also operated in Germany and other European countries, where they engaged in extorting protection money, arms trafficking, and contract killings.
The leader of the Daltons, Beratcan Gökdemir, was arrested in Russia in 2024, Spiegel reported. Turkey demanded his extradition, but Russia never handed him over. Experts speculated that the Kremlin might have hoped to get something from the Daltons in return. It remains unclear whether Gökdemir is still in Russia.
Plots and attacks in Europe
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