Turkey arrests two on charges of spying for Israeli regime

Turkey has arrested two suspects on charges of spying for the Israeli regime. 

Turkish intelligence forces said two Turkish nationals were arrested for allegedly spying for Israel and providing intelligence for Mossad that allowed the Israeli spy agency to strike its targets, the Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported on Friday.

Mehmet Budak Derya and Veysel Kerimoglu were arrested in Istanbul, according to the Turkish MIT intelligence agency.

The two, who had long been suspected by Turkish intelligence forces of working for Mossad, are currently in custody and being questioned by police investigators.

Derya was arrested while trying to set up a company that would have overseen three Asian shell companies whose aim was allegedly to hide the origins of various products that would have been supplied to buyers on Mossad's radar.

Derya was a mining engineer who opened a marble quarry near the southern coastal city of Mersin in 2005.

He was contacted by Mossad, reportedly via an individual called Ali Ahmed Yassin, after starting to trade with companies overseas in 2012.

According to investigators familiar with the case, Yassin ran an Israeli shell company and invited Derya for a business trip to Europe in 2013.

On that trip, Derya was introduced to the Israeli agents working for Mossad, who discussed doing business with him. The Israeli agents suggested to Derya that he work with a Turkish national of Palestinian origin named Veysel Kerimoglu, who was on Mossad's payroll.

Through Kerimoglu, Derya grew his Middle Eastern business activities and gained access to social and commercial ties with Palestinians opposed to the Israeli regime.

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Derya and Kerimoglu shared with Mossad agents the information they had gathered about Palestinians.

Additionally, they provided technical information and photos to Mossad of locations they were looking to acquire land, notably in the Gaza Strip.

According to Turkish investigators, Derya used an encrypted communication system to send technical data to his Mossad handlers.

Allegedly, Kerimoglu, in 2016, proposed to Derya that supplying drone parts to his contacts was a good business.

They contacted Tunisian engineer Mohamed Zouari, who was gunned down later that year in his hometown, Sfax, a major port city in the North African country.

A Tunisian court in 2025 convicted 18 people in absentia over the murder of Zouari.

Zouari, who was an inventor specializing in drone development for the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement, investigators said, was targeted by Mossad.

Hamas said Mossad had orchestrated Zouari's assassination, emphasizing his leadership role in the Palestinian group's military projects, like the Ababil aircraft and drone initiatives, and a remotely piloted submarine project.

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