Turks apparently buy criminal charges in their homeland in order to get asylum in Germany

According to a report in “Zeit”, some asylum seekers from Turkey are buying real criminal cases in their homeland in order to prove political persecution in Germany. Bribed prosecutors initiate investigations, which are then recorded in the Turkish judicial database Uyap. According to the report, the business is offered via TikTok and Telegram. Complete packages including smuggling to Germany cost from 6,000 euros.

Uyap is run by the Turkish Ministry of Justice. It contains investigations, indictments and verdicts from all over the country. Citizens can view their own files via the government online portal E-Devlet. Asylum seekers call up the entries in front of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) on their cell phones to show that they are being persecuted in Turkey.

The Bamf has been dealing with Uyap fraud for a long time. So far it has been about deceptively real replicas of the site, which could only be recognized by the internet address. According to “Zeit”, the authorities were surprised that real entries are now being misused. Bamf department head Patrick Schmidtke spoke of numerous inconsistencies that the decision-makers encountered.

That's how business works

According to the newspaper, the process follows a fixed pattern. The customer publishes a post critical of Erdogan on social networks. Insulting the head of state is a punishable offense in Turkey. A bribed public prosecutor uses the post as an opportunity to initiate an investigation. The procedure is regularly recorded in Uyap. In Germany, the applicant can therefore provide evidence of a criminal prosecution that he himself ordered.

Reporters from “Zeit” posed as interested parties from several providers. One offered an investigation, house search and indictment for 800 euros. “This will give you a residence permit anywhere,” he said. He has satisfied customers in Hamburg and Berlin. Another provider advised against: If you return to Turkey, such procedures could pose major problems.

Turks make up the third largest group of asylum seekers in Germany, with around 140,000 applications received since 2021. The protection rate fell from 43 percent in 2020 to around twelve percent. The Bamf emphasizes that it examines each individual case. The Frankfurt expert Kamil Taylan, whose report on Turkish asylum procedures is circulating between the federal states, also warns that soon no one will be able to believe honest applicants anymore. At the Gelsenkirchen Administrative Court, two chambers deal exclusively with complaints from rejected Turkish asylum seekers. There are still 685 cases open there; the last lawsuits that were heard were in 2019.