100 years behind bars: Turkish family sentenced for spying for Mossad

A Turkish family of three and three other Turkish individuals were sentenced to a total of 100 years in prison for spying for Israel’s Mossad and gathering intelligence on their targets, Turkish media reported on Thursday.

Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) originally arrested a total of eight people in April 2024 in Istanbul, following a surveillance operation.

Among the convicted individuals are Ahmet Ersin Tumlucalı, owner of an insurance company, who has received a 22 and a half year jail sentence for leading a network of operatives working for Mossad, including his wife and stepdaughter.

According to the ruling by Istanbul’s 23rd Heavy Penal Court, his sentence has been reduced to 18 years and nine months for “good behavior."

His wife, Benan Tumlucalı, was sentenced to 16 years and eight months, and their daughter, Dila Sultan Şimşek, was sentenced to 15 years, seven months and 15 days in prison.

The remaining three collaborators - Cem Ozcan, Ozkan Arican, and Fuzuli Simsek - were each handed prison terms of 15 years, seven months and 15 days.

According to the court, the individuals spied on behalf of Mossad and gathered confidential information. The prosecution claimed the group worked for Mossad's “online operations” unit, and were tasked with carrying out photo surveillance of targets in Turkey. 

The indictment said "the suspects were engaged in acts of obtaining information about foreigners in the country, particularly those who fled their home countries due to conflicts and shared this intelligence with (Mossad)."

Contact with alleged agent

It was also claimed that Tumlucalı was in contact with an Israeli intelligence officer code-named "Jorg," with the two communicating via Skype. “Jorg” and Tumlucalı met in Vienna and Munich in 2011 and 2017.

Tumlucalı also reportedly met another intelligence officer named Gavin Alfron in Vienna and Frankfurt in 2017 until 2020 when Mossad allegedly terminated his contract.

Additionally to surveying Turkish targets for Mossad, Tumlucalı is accused of running surveillance in Georgia and Germany, as well as providing Israel with “some official documents from Lebanon.” 

Some of the surveillance targets were Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian and Azerbaijani nationals.

According the indictment, he received assistance from his wife Benan, stepdaughter Dila Sultan Şimşek and his sister-in-law Berna Çetin in all operations.

It added that, between 2014 and 2019, payments were transferred to his wife’s bank account. In one case, Tumlucalı was paid 300,000 euros ($333,282), the indictment said.

CNN TURK Istanbul News Director Nihat Uludağ said, “Mossad has been trying to operate in Türkiye for a long time, but since it cannot send its own agents, it identifies such people and uses them as a spy network."

"The Tumlucalı family, Ahmet Ersin Tumlucalı, who works with an insurance company, his wife Benan Tumlucalı and his stepdaughter Dila Sultan Şimşek, 7 people including them were caught. MIT had determined that personal data belonging to the state it spied on and personal data belonging to some people were given to Mossad."