About the Gulen movements finances

January 25, 2019

the leader of a large and influential religious and political movement with immense commercial holdings.....................

July 15, 2016: At the indictment, it was stated that the financial size of FETO was at least 150 billion dollars.

Because of the movement's loose-knit "nonstructure," precise statistics of its work and financial outlay do not exist; but estimates are consistently substantial. A 2009 study by University of Houston sociology Professor Helen Rose Ebaugh indicates that, at the time, some 20,000 Hizmet-supporting businesses and other enterprises yielded as much as $1 billion annually, with some wealthy individuals contributing millions of dollars each.19

Le Monde has called Hizmet the largest Islamic civic movement in the world. Hizmet, it is thought, may have as many as eight million supporters or admirers in all areas of the planet.

In the video In their own words: The Gulen Terror-Cult Nurettin Veren says the following about money:

(30:41)
Nurettin Veren:
"We operated educational enterprises while simultaneously entering many other businesses. (The cult) operated a newspaper, TV networks, accepted donations, as well as activities with women. That money that was being amassed grew so immense we had nowhere to put it."

"In order to organize this money we were forced to setup a bank (Bank Aysa) because there was so much money floating around it was difficult to control. When the control of so much money became difficult I recommended moving them into the bank in legal channels so they could be deposited and spent."

He (Gulen) was very much against the funds being tracked and under control. In his own words, he (Gulen) said: "I had always thought politicians were smart.... capable, and a threat but these people (politicians) are very gullible".  "I was afraid they would harm us, but we can easily use them (politicians) ...it's good we met with them"  he said and his words are on record as saying so.

Gulen now found an arena that was much easier to navigate than he had expected. He wouldn't only manipulate members of his cult, as well as banks, money,  businesses, but he also began to believe he could manipulate politicians as well.

(32:51)
Latif Erdogan:
Cash that is "donated" to the cult is never recorded and is spent on expenses that can't be explained.
For example, Gulen has around 100 thousand (cult) houses in Turkey alone. The expense for these cell houses are paid for using illegal donations.

.....The Ebaugh-Koc paper also purports to explore the sources of funding for the Gulen movement's projects, but in fact it merely presents a series of uninterrupted anecdotes. The authors explain the need for examining the issue of finances:
Questions regarding the financing of these numerous and expensive projects are periodically raised by both critics of the Gulen Movement and newcomers to the movement who are invited to Gulen related events.

Because of the large amounts of money involved in these projects, on occasion people have raised the possibility of a collusion between the movement and various governments, especially Saudi Arabia and/or Iran, and including the Turkish government. There have even been suspicions that the American CIA may be a financial partner behind the projects.

In 2008, US Government court filings estimated the global value of Gülen’s empire at anywhere between $25 and $50 billion. No one could prove how large as there were no independent audits. In a US Court testimony during the hearing on Gülen’s petition for a special US Green Card permanent residence status, one loyal Cemaat journalist described the nominal extent of Gülen’s empire:

The projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers today number in the thousands, span international borders and…include over 2000 schools and seven universities in more than ninety countries in five continents, two modern hospitals, the Zaman newspaper (now in both a Turkish and English edition), a television channel (Samanyolu), a radio channel (Burc FM), CHA (a major Turkish news agency), Aksiyon (a leading weekly news magazine), national and international Gülen conferences, Ramadan interfaith dinners, interfaith dialog trips to Turkey from countries around the globe and the many programs sponsored by the Journalists and Writers Foundation. In addition, the Isik insurance company and Bank Asya, an Islamic bank, are affiliated with the Gülen community.

Bank Asya was listed among the Top 500 Banks in the world by London’s Banker magazine. It had joint-venture banking across Muslim Africa, from Senegal to Mali in a strategic cooperation agreement with the Islamic Development Bank’s Senegal-based Tamweel Africa Holding SA. Zaman, which also owns the English-language Today’s Zaman, is the largest daily paper in Turkey.

Millions of Turkish Liras were seized in an operation targeting the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure (FETÖ/PDY) in the Pendik district of Istanbul which was carried out upon the testimony of a suspect called the “safe of the Gülen movement.” Murat Kılıç, who was caught on Aug. 3 in Istanbul alongside 11 others, pointed to a housing complex in Pendik in his testimony.  

The police seized 2.13 million liras in the parking lot of the housing complex, daily Habertürk reported on Aug. 5. In addition to the money found in the parking lot, 200,000 liras were seized by the police in a search conducted in a house in Istanbul’s Eyüp......

................Officers from the anti-smuggling and organized crime units raided different addresses in a number of Istanbul districts, including Güngören, Beylikdüzü, Sarıyer and Kadıköy.

The police found 3.5 million liras and a check worth 50 million liras during the operation in which Kılıç was caught, as well as a number of American one dollar bills with an F serial number,which were believed to be used to show membership in FETÖ.