According to reports, police acted on tip-offs concerning Quest.net, which operated out of home offices in İstanbul’s Bahçelievler, Kadıköy, Esenler, Zeytinburnu and Güngören districts and which was allegedly a money-earning scheme run as part of a Hong Kong-based business. According to reports, the scheme claimed to make people rich through the Internet -- the swindlers running the home office signed people up as members for a cost of $570-1,700 and promised that for each new member they brought, they would be paid $250.Police conducted simultaneous raids on home offices in four districts, taking into custody the ring’s leader, Syrian national M.K., and 53 other people, including one woman. Police also confiscated computers and documents from the locations. In the ongoing investigation, police have so far discovered that the money collected through the scheme was transferred to the account of a Hong Kong-based business. A team of police experts is continuing the investigation to determine the exact amount of money acquired and sent abroad as well as the precise senders and receivers of the funds. So far, police estimate that at least $2 million was swindled and then transferred abroad through this system.
The Quest.net system has been outlawed in many countries, including the United States, Iran, Albania, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia and Afghanistan. The fraud scheme in Turkey, which targeted young people who wanted to get rich quick, had managed to reel in judges, attorneys and businesspeople.
