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| Turkish diplomat Tanju Bilgic |
Top secret information on Cyprus was among a number of files allegedly leaked by Turkish diplomats to an organised crime gang operating in a Turkey that uses them for blackmail purposes, it emerged on Friday.
According to Nordic Monitor, top Turkish diplomats have leaked classified information and reports to an organised crime gang operating in several cities in Turkey. The non-governmental organisation cites secret profiling lists created by gang members.
Members of the gang were accused of blackmail and illegally obtaining confidential government and military documents. The group then either sold or planned to sell these sensitive documents, it said.
“They were reportedly using ‘honey traps’ with the help of escort women, offered cash or employed methods used in espionage to obtain classified information from high-ranking officers and senior bureaucrats,” the NGO reported.
According to the group’s secret documents obtained by Nordic Monitor, Turkish diplomats, some of whom currently serve as ambassadors in foreign capitals, provided top-secret diplomatic reports and sensitive information to the criminals. The sexual encounters of government officials were recorded to ensure a continuation of the leaks.
In addition to family secrets, information on their weaknesses, characteristics and professional networks, and comments by other diplomats on their private lives were listed by the gang to threaten those people.
The gang members claimed that Turkish diplomat Tanju Bilgic supplied five or six highly classified documents on Cyprus to them.
Bilgic is currently Turkey’s ambassador to Serbia. Prior to that, he served as foreign ministry spokesman from 2014 to 2016 and head of the Cyprus-Greece desk between 2008 and 2011. When the prosecutor began a criminal inquiry into those allegations, he was coordinating Turkey-Greece relations and had full access to confidential correspondence, the NGO said.
An investigation by the Izmir Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, launched in 2011, exposed members of the network, their criminal activities and Turkish military, police and intelligence officers with illegal links to the gang, it reported. “Diplomats who engaged with the group were also indicted by the chief prosecutor. Today, most of the foreign ministry staff described in these lists continue representing Turkey abroad.”
CYPRUS MAIL
