When Turkish authorities moved against IQ Money in November 2025, one of the most important figures connected to the company was already outside the country. Mustafa Duran, the company’s chairman and a prominent public face of the payment business, had reportedly left Turkey shortly before the operation. Within days, reports emerged that an international red notice had been issued for him.
Months later, the story took another turn. In July 2026, Turkish media reported that Duran had been arrested in Dubai after being sought internationally and that proceedings for his return to Turkey were underway. By then, the investigation surrounding IQ Money had expanded into one of the country’s largest reported cases involving alleged illegal betting, money laundering and organized financial activity.
The allegations are substantial, but they should be described carefully. Prosecutors accuse Duran and other suspects of crimes including facilitating illegal betting, laundering assets derived from crime and forming an organization for criminal purposes. Those accusations are contained in an indictment and have not, at this stage, become a final judicial finding of guilt. The significance of the case lies in the evidence prosecutors say they uncovered and the scale of the financial flows allegedly passing through the system.
The story of Mustafa Duran is therefore not simply about a businessman who left Turkey before an operation. It is about the collapse of a payment company that had once presented itself as a growing fintech business, the regulatory questions that surrounded it, and an alleged financial infrastructure that investigators say was connected to hundreds of betting operations.
Duran had previously presented IQ Money as an ambitious Turkish financial technology company. In a 2022 interview, he identified himself as the company’s chairman and said IQ Money operated in Turkey, Azerbaijan, the United States and Libya. He described services including QR payments, mobile POS, physical POS, virtual POS and debit cards, and spoke about the company’s ambition to become an international Turkish company operating across seven continents.
That public image is important because it stands in sharp contrast to the allegations that would later emerge. The company was not described publicly merely as an obscure financial intermediary. It operated within the regulated payments sector and had obtained authorization from Turkey’s central bank. That regulatory status would become one of the most important elements of the investigation because prosecutors later alleged that the legitimate payment infrastructure was used in connection with illegal betting activity.
The regulatory history had already become complicated before the November 2025 criminal operation. According to reporting based on Central Bank inspection material, IQ Money’s operating authorization had been cancelled in November 2023. The company challenged that decision, and an administrative court later ruled in its favour, allowing the authorization to be restored. Murat Ağırel’s reporting for Cumhuriyet also raised questions about the company’s ownership, capitalization and changes in its management structure.
Then came the criminal investigation.
On November 18, 2025, Turkish authorities carried out an operation involving IQ Money and people linked to the company. Reports said that dozens of suspects were detained and that a number were subsequently arrested. Duran, however, was not among those taken into custody in Turkey. According to reporting at the time, he had left the country before the operation. His wife and IQ Money board member Nuran Duran was among those detained and later reported as arrested.
The timing immediately became one of the most important questions surrounding Duran.
Murat Ağırel wrote that Duran allegedly left Turkey one day before the operation. That claim placed the departure at the center of the investigation because it raised the obvious question of whether Duran knew that authorities were preparing to move against the company. At the time, however, that remained a reported allegation rather than a publicly established finding that he had been warned by someone inside the investigation.
Shortly afterward, reports emerged that Turkish authorities had sought an international red notice for Duran. The development transformed the case from a domestic investigation into an international pursuit. Duran was no longer simply a company executive who had avoided arrest in Turkey. He was being sought internationally in connection with a criminal investigation that prosecutors said involved illegal betting and financial crimes.
The scale of the investigation became clearer as MASAK and Central Bank findings entered the public record.
According to the indictment reported in July 2026, the financial infrastructure associated with IQ Money and companies allegedly controlled by the network generated a total transaction volume of approximately 155.52 billion Turkish lira. Prosecutors reportedly assessed that at least 78 billion lira was strongly suspected of being connected to illegal betting and money laundering activities.
The figure is enormous, but it needs to be understood correctly. A transaction volume of 155 billion lira does not mean that investigators allege Duran personally stole 155 billion lira. It refers to the volume of transactions prosecutors say passed through the structures under investigation. The alleged criminal proceeds represent a separate figure within that overall flow.
The indictment reportedly identifies 196 illegal betting websites connected to the system. Prosecutors allege that IQ Money’s payment infrastructure was integrated into systems used by those sites, allowing users to deposit and withdraw money through payment channels associated with the company. Reports based on the indictment say investigators also identified 287 instances in which IQ Money-linked IBAN or virtual POS information allegedly appeared on illegal betting websites.
That allegation is central to the case against the company because it moves the investigation beyond suspicious transactions. Prosecutors are effectively alleging that payment infrastructure itself became part of the mechanism through which illegal betting money could move.
The alleged laundering process was also described in the indictment. According to reporting on the prosecution file, money was allegedly transferred to technology companies under descriptions such as software payments and subsequently moved through businesses and assets including gold purchases, jewellery companies, luxury vehicles, real estate and crypto assets. Prosecutors also alleged that some funds were transferred abroad and that cold cryptocurrency wallets were used to move money outside Turkey.
If those allegations are ultimately established in court, they would provide a picture of a system designed not simply to process payments but to obscure the origin and destination of money.
The investigation also produced questions about how the alleged activity continued despite regulatory scrutiny.
Cumhuriyet columnist Murat Ağırel reported that Central Bank inspection findings indicated IQ Money continued certain payment-transfer and payment-intermediation activities even after its authorization had been cancelled in 2023. He also raised questions about the company’s ownership and capitalization and about the involvement of Mustafa and Nuran Duran in the company’s structure.
Those questions are significant because IQ Money operated in a sector where companies are subject to regulatory oversight. If prosecutors’ allegations are correct, the case is not only about the people allegedly operating an illegal financial network. It also raises questions about whether warning signs were identified, how they were handled and why the system was able to operate for as long as it allegedly did.
There were further allegations concerning the company’s technology.
According to July 2026 reporting on the indictment, investigators alleged that IQ Money’s API infrastructure was connected to payment panels used by numerous illegal betting websites. The indictment reportedly named sites including 1xBet, Meritking, Onwin and Sahabet among the platforms allegedly connected to the system. It also cited online material that purportedly explained how users could make betting deposits through IQ Money.
Prosecutors reportedly also alleged that the company obstructed or interfered with aspects of regulatory inspection and that, after the appointment of the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund as trustee, information technology infrastructure and accounting records had been removed or destroyed. These are particularly serious allegations, but they remain allegations contained in the prosecution’s case and should not be treated as proven facts without a judicial finding.
Another controversial detail emerged concerning Duran’s professional credentials. Recent reporting based on the indictment says Duran’s curriculum vitae submitted to the Central Bank stated that he had graduated from the London School of Economics. Investigators reportedly said that the requested educational documentation was not provided. Reports have described this as a potentially false representation, although the precise legal status of that allegation remains a matter for the judicial process.
Then came the development that dramatically changed Duran’s position.
In July 2026, Turkish media reported that Duran had been located and arrested in the United Arab Emirates. The reports said that he had been the subject of an Interpol red notice and that procedures for his return to Turkey were continuing. At the same time, prosecutors had completed their investigation and prepared an indictment involving 33 suspects.
The indictment reportedly seeks prison sentences of between 18 and 27 years for the suspects for alleged illegal betting facilitation, laundering of criminal proceeds and establishing an organization for criminal purposes. Duran is described in the prosecution file as the alleged leader of the organization. Again, those are prosecution allegations and requested sentences, not a conviction or sentence imposed by a court.
His arrest in Dubai therefore closes one chapter but does not end the case.
For months, Duran’s absence had left a central figure in the investigation outside the reach of Turkish authorities. His reported arrest means that investigators may now have an opportunity to question him directly and, depending on the outcome of extradition proceedings, bring him before a Turkish court.
The bigger issue is what happens next.
The IQ Money case has exposed an uncomfortable question for the regulated payments industry. A company can have a corporate structure, financial technology, payment infrastructure and regulatory history that make it look like an ordinary fintech business while allegedly becoming intertwined with a much darker financial ecosystem. The allegations against IQ Money suggest that investigators believe exactly such a structure existed here.
Duran’s journey from chairman of an ambitious payment company to an internationally wanted suspect illustrates the dramatic reversal. In 2022, he was publicly discussing global expansion and describing IQ Money’s technology and ambitions. By late 2025, authorities were investigating the company in connection with alleged illegal betting and money laundering. By November, reports said Duran had left Turkey. By July 2026, he was reported to have been arrested in Dubai after an international search.
But the most important part of the story may still be unresolved.
The 155 billion lira figure is likely to attract the headlines. Duran’s flight and Dubai arrest make the story more dramatic. Yet the deeper investigative question is how the alleged system functioned for so long, who provided access to the financial infrastructure, who monitored the transactions, and whether warnings were missed or ignored.
Those questions extend beyond one man.
If the prosecution’s allegations are ultimately proven, the IQ Money case could become an important example of how legitimate payment infrastructure can allegedly be repurposed to facilitate illegal financial activity. If parts of the prosecution’s case fail in court, that will also matter, because the distinction between suspicious financial activity and criminal responsibility is fundamental.
For now, Mustafa Duran remains an accused figure rather than a convicted criminal. What is no longer in dispute is that the investigation has reached an international stage, that Turkish authorities sought him through an Interpol red notice, that he was reported arrested in Dubai, and that prosecutors have built a major criminal case around IQ Money’s alleged role in a vast illegal betting and money-laundering network.
The next decisive chapter will not be written in headlines. It will be written in court records, extradition proceedings, financial evidence and testimony.
And that is where the real story of Mustafa Duran and IQ Money will ultimately be tested.
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