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2026-03-28 The Grand Turk
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There's a knock on their door: Actress Hande Erçel and other celebrities detained in Turkey
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Fedot Streletsky
[REGNUM] There's a major scandal in Turkey today: actress Hande Erçel, the superstar of the series "Knock on My Door" and other Turkish TV dramas beloved by millions of housewives around the world, has been arrested.
Initially, she was arrested in absentia—by a lucky coincidence (for her), she was outside her homeland at the time. The actress immediately reassured her fans, posting on social media, assuring them that she would soon return, testify, and that everything would be resolved safely. She also emphasized her love for her country and expressed confidence in the Turkish state and justice system.
| Exceedingly naive, poor dear. |
Just two days later, Turkish police met her at the airport.
The Turkish judiciary, for its part, has little confidence not only in Handa Erçel but also in many other prominent Turkish citizens. This is why it launched the large-scale Operation Dawn, which periodically involves mass arrests of media personalities with considerable influence in society.
The latest wave of such arrests, in addition to Erçel, involved 14 other individuals. They are all suspected of violating criminal code articles containing terms such as "drugs" and "prostitution."
Also among the 14 people mentioned is Erçel's former beau, millionaire Hakan Sabancı, heir to one of Turkey's wealthiest families, which owns the financial and industrial conglomerate Sabancı Holding (which includes, for example, Pegasus Airlines). His brother, Kerim Sabancı, and the former presidents of Istanbul football clubs Beşiktaş and Galatasaray are also among those mentioned. And so on.
This is far from the first police operation of this kind. Operation "Dawn" began last fall, and news of new "star catches" appears in the press with enviable regularity.
Thus, among the victims of the first wave of arrests, which took place at the end of December 2025, was Mehmet Akif Ersoy, a television presenter and editor-in-chief (now former) of Habertürk TV, one of the most influential journalists in Turkey, who once held the position of presidential adviser on Middle East issues.
And already in early January of this year, Turkish security forces carried out a series of raids on elite nightclubs in Istanbul, arresting seven people.
One of them—actor Can Yaman, star of the series "Sandokan: The Pirate Prince"—was released almost immediately, despite the illegal substances found on him, according to sources. It turned out that the prosecutor's office had not issued a warrant for his arrest. Singer and actress Selen Görgüzel, however, was less fortunate: she was arrested along with colleagues Ceren Alper and Ayşe Sağlam.
At some point, the drug investigation unexpectedly intersected with another high-profile corruption case. The main defendant is former Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who, before his imprisonment, was considered one of the main political opponents of current Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
This happened after the arrest of Turkish internet celebrity Rabia Karaca, who immediately began informing on all of her numerous acquaintances in rich and famous circles.
Including volleyball player Derya Çayırgan. Allegedly, she was the disgraced Istanbul mayor's mistress, enjoyed his patronage, and received financial support from him. Derya, for her part, categorically denied all the allegations and promised to initiate a new trial to officially expose the slander.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Rabia Karaca revealed many other interesting things. For example, she spoke in detail about her long-term relationship—in many ways strange and unnatural—with businessman Murat Gülibrahimoglu. Specifically, she described how lavishly he lived, what illegal substances he used, and the unpleasant things he forced her to do. Incidentally, this Murat Gülibrahimoglu is named as Ekrem İmamoğlu's closest accomplice in the same case.
Karaca also criticized another of Imamoglu's associates, Fatih Keleş, former head of the Istanbul sports club IBB, who is in custody with him. She claimed that Gülibrahimoglu provided him with various illegal services. Keleş responded to this with a damning speech through his lawyer, claiming he was confronted with an "immoral conspiracy" aimed at "a direct attack on the institution of the family."
Selen Görgüzel, the same woman who was detained during the raid in early January, also admitted to having ties to Murat Gülibrahimoglu and Ekrem İmamoğlu.
According to her own testimony, she spent a vacation with the aforementioned men and became an unwitting witness to them gambling and engaging in debauchery in a secret room on the former mayor of Istanbul's private jet. Selen Görgüzel herself, of course, did not participate. Unlike another singer and actress, Emel Müftüoğlu —the mother of Çağra Müftüoğlu, known for her role in the series "Magnificent Century: The Empire of Kösem."
Be that as it may, the Istanbul prosecutor's office justifies the raids on entertainment venues where Turkish bohemians typically spend their leisure time, as well as their homes, by "protecting public morals, social structure, and traditional family life." This is precisely what the official statement released following the latest operation stated.
Bohemians, whose names are now constantly appearing in the press alongside terms from the criminal code, complain that the presumption of innocence is being violated and that their reputations and careers are being damaged.
Actor Dogukan Güngör was even fired from the highly successful series "Cranberry Sherbet," where he starred for four seasons, due to a positive drug test. Fans of the series expressed outrage on social media and vowed to boycott the series from now on.
The Turkish opposition is also not silent, and, as usual, accuses the government of simply persecuting those it deems undesirable. And the unsavory details that have surfaced about the lives of today's creative and business elite seem to be of little interest to opponents of the republic's leadership. Özgür Özel, leader of the Republican People's Party, commented on the situation, giving a clear assessment of the situation.
"This isn't a fight against crime. It's a clear message to artists: either you're with us, or you're next," he said. Ozel also noted that while police search celebrities' homes all night long, real drug dealers and gang members walk free.
Various committees for the protection of sexual minorities have also become seriously agitated. Activists believe that the drug investigation is actually being conducted to criminalize and persecute members of the LGBT* community, even though most of those arrested have no connection to it.
In any case, the Turkish authorities have obviously taken this glamorous crowd, which is outwardly generally apolitical but has close personal ties to the opposition, seriously.
Former Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu anxiously awaits the outcome of his trial. The indictment prepared by the prosecutor's office runs to nearly 4,000 pages, naming him as the founder and leader of a powerful criminal group. In a worst-case scenario, he could be sentenced to a total of more than 2,400 years in prison.
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