Police in Türkiye have broken up an alleged fraud network that used fake car-rental websites to lure people looking for cheap vehicles, with raids in 10 provinces including the Mediterranean resort province of Antalya, the Anadolu Agency (AA) reported on Saturday morning.
The investigation was led by the public order branch of the Diyarbakır provincial police department. In the operation, code-named "Patinaj" (Turkish for "wheelspin"), officers carried out simultaneous raids at addresses in Diyarbakır, Istanbul, Antalya, Aydın, Mersin, Hatay, Gaziantep, Elazığ, Bingöl and Batman, according to AA.
Fifteen suspects were detained. After questioning they were referred to court, which ordered 12 of them jailed pending trial and released the other three under judicial control, a set of conditions such as reporting regularly to a police station. Being jailed pending trial ("tutuklama") is not a conviction, and the suspects have not yet been tried.
How the alleged scheme worked
According to the report, the suspects set up rental websites that did not belong to any genuine car-hire business and advertised vehicles at prices below the going market rate. People searching online for a cheap rental were steered to these sites, where the suspects allegedly obtained money from them unlawfully.
Investigators found that bank accounts linked to the suspects had a combined transaction volume of 226,104,370 lira, or about 226 million lira, and 51 bank accounts were seized, AA said. The report did not say how many people had been defrauded or how much individual victims had lost.
Why it matters for visitors and residents
Many visitors and foreign residents book rental cars online, which is exactly the market the alleged network targeted. Three of the provinces where raids took place, Antalya, Aydın and Mersin, are on the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts.
The case is a reminder of some basic precautions: be wary of prices that look far below those of other companies, check that a rental firm has a verifiable physical office and reviews independent of its own website, and avoid paying deposits by bank transfer to individuals’ accounts. Anyone who believes they have been defrauded can file a complaint with the police, the gendarmerie or the public prosecutor’s office.
Online identity checks are also tightening for foreigners: from 1 November, tourists will need a passport-based e-Devlet token to complete age verification on social media. Antalya continues to draw large numbers of foreign visitors, as our report on Antalya’s arrivals in the first nine months of 2026 shows. For a wider look at practicalities, see our checklist for moving to Turkey and the guide to living in Antalya.
Sources
Photo: Janne Aspegren / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
