After raiding a home and business owned by someone suspected of loyalties to a banned Muslim cleric, police listed the incriminating evidence they found: two shotguns, a pistol, ammunition, a fake identity card – and three $1 bills.
The serial numbers, they noted, all began with the letter F.
In one of the odder twists in Turkey’s failed July 15 coup and the subsequent crackdown, authorities are citing U.S. banknotes – and $1 bills in particular – as evidence that people are followers of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Muslim cleric whom Turkey accuses of orchestrating the coup. Gulen, whose broad but secretive movement runs schools, charities and businesses across the globe, denies any involvement.
“There is no doubt that this $1 bill has some important function within the Gulenist terror organization,” Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag recently told the A Haber television channel. “Prosecutors are asking as they investigate what these are. What does this mean? Why are they being carried? Does it signify a hierarchy to them? Is it some sort of ID that identifies them to one another?”
The minister said he had received information speculating on the banknotes’ significance, “but contrary information may also surface, so I don’t want to share it at this moment. This will be clearly revealed once the investigation is complete.”
One idea making the rounds in Turkish news media is that the letters at the start of the banknotes’ serial numbers correspond to ranks in the movement. According to a report in the Aksam daily, one theory is that F designates a high-ranking soldier or police chief; J and C represent low-ranking soldiers; E and S are for instructors and academics in Gulenist schools and B is for students.
“With one American dollar, this organization turned the children of this country into monsters,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Thursday in a speech.
A senior government official said “multiple” people questioned for suspected participation in the abortive military coup told prosecutors they received $1 bills from superiors within the Gulenist movement.
“They were told that Fethullah Gulen himself had blessed the banknotes,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.