A fraud charge in Türkiye, and the one letter that sets the floor.

Fraud is TCK 157, and the wording is narrower than the word suggests. Three things must be present together: deceitful conduct (hileli davranış), a person who was deceived by it, and a benefit obtained for the accused or for someone else to the loss of that person or of another. The sentence is one to five years' imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to five thousand days.

Each of the three is a place where a file can be attacked, and they are attacked in a fixed order. Was there conduct designed to create a false picture, or only a promise that was not kept? Was anyone in fact deceived by it, and who? Did a benefit pass, and did it pass because of the deception rather than alongside it? A complaint that describes an investment that lost money, a partner who stopped paying, or goods that arrived late has not yet described any of the three.

The lesser form that is rarely mentioned early

TCK 159 covers fraud committed in order to collect a debt founded on a legal relationship. It is prosecuted only on complaint and carries six months to one year's imprisonment or a judicial fine. Where the money was genuinely owed and the dispute is about how it was recovered, the article that fits may be this one and not TCK 157.

The fine is not the small part

Under TCK 52, a judicial fine is a number of days multiplied by a daily amount the court sets at between one hundred and five hundred Turkish lira according to the person's means. TCK 157 and TCK 158 both allow up to five thousand days. At the top of both scales that is two and a half million lira, and it can be ordered alongside a prison sentence that is suspended.

Where any of the forms listed in TCK 158/1 is present, the range becomes three to ten years' imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to five thousand days. For five of the twelve, the article then adds a second rule: the minimum sentence cannot be less than four years, and the fine cannot be less than twice the benefit obtained from the offence.

Paragraph (f) is the one that reaches most foreign nationals. A transfer arranged over a banking app, an exchange account, a messaging platform or a website will usually be charged under it, which is why so many files that look modest start at four years rather than one.

Two multipliers that sit on top

TCK 158/2 applies the same range to a person who obtains a benefit by deceiving someone with a claim of connections with public officials and a promise that a matter will be arranged.

TCK 158/3 applies to both TCK 157 and TCK 158. Where the offence is committed by three or more persons together, the sentence is increased by half. Where it is committed within the activity of an organisation formed to commit crime, the sentence is doubled. This paragraph, not the underlying facts, is usually what turns a file into a long one.

The provision added in July 2026

TCK 158/4 was inserted on 16 July 2026. Where a person's participation in a TCK 157 or 158 offence is limited to handing over a payment instrument such as a bank or credit card, or the credentials or devices that allow an account to be used at a bank, an intermediary institution, a payment service provider or a crypto-asset service provider, the sentence is reduced by half. It is a reduction, not an acquittal, and it presupposes participation. If you were paid to open accounts, see the page on account lending and money mule allegations.

TCK 168 applies to fraud by name. It is the single largest lever in most files, and it is governed by when the money is repaid rather than by how sorry anyone is.

• Where the offender, the instigator or an accomplice personally shows remorse and fully makes good the victim's loss, by returning the thing itself or by compensation, after the offence is complete but before prosecution has begun — up to two thirds is taken off the sentence.
• Where the same is done after prosecution has begun but before judgment — up to one half.
• Where the repayment is partial, TCK 168/4 requires the victim's consent before the article can be applied at all.

What repayment also unlocks

Repayment is a precondition elsewhere as well. Under CMK 231, deferral of the announcement of the judgment (hükmün açıklanmasının geri bırakılması) is available where the sentence is two years or less, the defendant has no previous conviction for an intentional offence, and the loss caused to the victim or to the public has been fully made good. The supervision period that follows is five years. Under TCK 51, suspension of a sentence of two years or less may likewise be made conditional on full compensation.

Settlement is open for TCK 157 and closed for TCK 158

Under CMK 253/1-b-8, fraud under article 157 is within the scope of criminal mediation (uzlaştırma). Qualified fraud under article 158 is not listed. Where mediation succeeds and the undertaking is performed at once, the prosecutor issues a decision not to prosecute. That is a second reason why the question of which article applies is worth fighting at the investigation stage rather than at trial. See the page on criminal mediation.

Fraud files are built from documents, and they are answered from documents. Four questions decide most of them.

Which representation, made to whom, and when

A charge under TCK 157 has to identify the deceitful conduct. In practice that means a message, a contract, an invoice, a website, a licence document or a call. If the indictment cannot point to one, or the one it points to came after the money moved, the element is not made out. An unpaid obligation is not deceit that produced a payment.

Which letter of TCK 158, if any

Prosecutors plead paragraph (f) broadly because almost every modern payment touches a bank or an information system. Whether a bank was used as a vehicle of the deception, or merely used to move money that was handed over for other reasons, is a real argument and it is worth four years of floor.

How many offences there are

Under TCK 43, where the same offence is committed more than once against the same person in execution of a single decision to offend, one sentence is imposed and increased by one quarter to three quarters. The same applies where one act harms several people. Whether twenty transfers are twenty offences or one chained offence (zincirleme suç) changes the arithmetic more than any speech in mitigation.

Who the complainant is

TCK 167 provides that where these offences are committed to the loss of a spouse against whom no separation order has been made, of an ascendant or descendant or an in-law of that degree, of an adoptive parent or adopted child, or of a sibling living in the same house, no penalty is imposed on that relative. Where the loss falls on a separated spouse, a sibling not living in the same house, or an uncle, aunt, nephew, niece or second-degree in-law living in the same house, the sentence is halved on complaint. Family and household money disputes reach police stations far more often than that article is applied.

Qualified fraud is not in the catalogue at CMK 100/3. That matters: no ground for remand is presumed. A remand order has to rest on strong suspicion supported by concrete evidence and on a ground under CMK 100/2 — concrete facts raising a suspicion of flight or of hiding, or conduct raising strong suspicion of destroying evidence or of pressuring witnesses. Against a foreign national, the ground cited is almost always the first, and it is argued on residence, family, employment and travel history rather than on nationality.

Where the maximum sentence does not exceed two years, CMK 100/4 forbids remand altogether. That covers TCK 159.

Outer limits on remand

Under CMK 102, in matters outside ağır ceza jurisdiction remand may not exceed one year, extendable by six months with reasons; within ağır ceza jurisdiction, two years, extendable by a total of no more than three further years. At the investigation stage the caps are six months and one year respectively. Extension decisions are taken only after the views of the prosecutor, the accused and defence counsel are obtained, which makes each one an opportunity rather than a formality.

Which court

Ağır ceza courts hear, among other things, offences requiring more than ten years' imprisonment (Law no. 5235, article 12). TCK 158/1 tops out at exactly ten, so a straight qualified fraud file is heard by the asliye ceza mahkemesi. Where the indictment also invokes TCK 158/3, the ceiling rises past ten and the file moves to the ağır ceza mahkemesi — with the longer remand limits above attached to it.

You are not automatically given a lawyer

Counsel is appointed without a request under CMK 150/3 only where the offence carries a lower limit of more than five years. The qualified fraud floors of three and four years sit below that line. Under CMK 150/1 a lawyer is appointed on request where a person states they cannot afford one. In a fraud file the request has to be made; nobody makes it for you.

Time limits on the case itself

Under TCK 66, the limitation period is eight years for offences carrying no more than five years — TCK 157 — and fifteen years for offences carrying more than five and less than twenty, which covers TCK 158.

Interpretation is narrower than people expect. Under CMK 202, where the accused cannot express themselves adequately in Turkish, the court-appointed interpreter renders the essential points of the accusation and the defence. That is not a running translation of the hearing and it is not a translation of the file. Separately, on the reading of the indictment and on the final opinion, the accused may make an oral defence in another language of their choosing through an interpreter they select from the official list, at their own cost. In a document-heavy fraud file, arranging translation of the file itself is a task for the defence.

Your consulate is told unless you object. Under CMK 95/2, where the person taken into custody is a foreign national, their state's consulate is notified unless they object in writing. Consulates do not defend the case; they confirm identity, pass messages and can observe conditions.

The exit ban is the ordinary outcome, not the exception. CMK 109/3-a lists not leaving the country (yurt dışına çıkamamak) as a judicial control measure, and it is imposed as an alternative to remand in a large share of economic files. The same article allows a security payment fixed by the judge, and a separate security to protect the victim's rights. A person released this way is free and cannot go home; on a fifteen-year limitation period, that restriction can outlast the reason it was imposed unless it is challenged and reviewed.

Conviction sets a separate process running. TCK 59 requires that when a foreign national sentenced to imprisonment is released on conditional release or supervised release, and in any event once the sentence has been served, their situation is reported immediately to the Ministry of the Interior to be assessed for deportation. Under Law no. 6458, article 54, a deportation decision is taken for those assessed as falling within TCK 59, and separately for those regarded as a threat to public order or public security. The criminal outcome and the immigration outcome are decided by different authorities on different timetables. See the page on deportation and entry bans.

What this page cannot tell you

It cannot tell you what your sentence will be. The figures above are statutory ranges; where a real case lands inside them is set by which paragraph of TCK 158 is charged, how many counts survive, whether TCK 43 or 158/3 is applied, what is repaid and when, and a discretionary reduction of up to one sixth under TCK 62. Nobody can give you a number without reading the file, and anyone who gives you one before reading it is guessing.