Charity boss arrested in BBC sex-for-aid investigation ’empowers women’

The owner of a Turkish charity at the center of sexual abuse allegations uncovered by a BBC investigation has been arrested.

BBC News Turkish uncovered allegations that Sadettin Karagoz exploited sexually vulnerable women, promising them help in exchange for sex. He denies all the charges.

Mr Karagöz founded his charity in the Turkish capital Ankara in 2014. Syrian refugees desperate for help said he seemed like an “angel” at first.

One of them, Madina, fled the Syrian civil war in 2016 and said that two years later, one of her children became critically ill and her husband abandoned her. Her name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

Left alone to take care of three children, she went to the Sadettin Karagoz organization, which translates as Hope Charity Shop. Collects donations for the refugees such as diapers, pasta, milk and clothes.

“He told me, ‘When you have nowhere to go, come to me and I’ll look after you,'” she says.

But when he did, Madina says he changed. She described how Mr. Karagioz told her to go with him to a part of the office behind a curtain to get some supplies.

“He grabbed me,” she says. “He started kissing me… I told him to get off me. If I hadn’t screamed, he would have tried to rape me.”

Madina described how she escaped from the building, but Mr. Karagoz later went to her home.

“I didn’t open the door because I was terrified,” she says, explaining that he threatened to send her back to Syria.

Scared of repercussions, Madina says she never went to the police or told anyone what happened.

Mr Karagoz, a retired banker, denies the allegations and told the BBC his organization had helped more than 37,000 people.

He says the charity’s distribution area is small, crowded and monitored by CCTV, so he would not be able to be alone with a woman.

Over the years, his charity has received widespread recognition and won a local newspaper award in 2020. It has been featured on national television and he says it has attracted support from national and international organisations. In March this year, it changed its name in Turkish to My Home-meal Association.

A total of three women, including Madina, told the BBC that Mr Karagoz sexually assaulted and harassed them.

Seven other people, including two former employees of his charity, say they either witnessed or heard first-hand accounts of acts of sexual abuse taking place between 2016 and 2024.

According to 27-year-old Syrian refugee Nada, he said he would only help her if she went to an empty apartment with him. “If you don’t, I won’t give you anything,” she says Mr. Karagoz told her. Again, her name has been changed to protect her anonymity.

She was with her sister-in-law and said they ran away. But desperate to provide for her family, she explains that she didn’t know where else to turn, so she returned.

On one occasion, Nada says, Mr. Karagoz took her behind a curtain to get diapers for her son, where “he tried to touch my breasts.”

Another time, she says, “he came from behind and grabbed my arm … forced me to touch his genitals.”

Afraid of the stigma attached to sexual assault and afraid of being accused, Nada says she didn’t feel like she could tell anyone, not even her husband.

The third woman who told the BBC that Mr Karagoz assaulted her was Batul, who has since moved to Germany.

A single mother, she also says she went to him for help. “When I turned to get help, he put his hands on my back,” she explains. “I left the help and walked out of the store.”

These statements are not the first to surface against Mr. Karagoz.

In 2019 and 2025, he was accused of sexual harassment and assault, but in both cases prosecutors decided there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute him. Police said neither victims nor witnesses were willing to come forward to file formal complaints.

Some women told us they feared that testifying could lead to harassment or deportation.

But after the BBC’s investigation, it emerged that two other women had come forward to report Mr Karagioz and their testimony had led to him being accused of sexual abuse. He is now in jail awaiting trial.

Batul says she is “really happy” that he has been arrested, “for myself and for all the women who suffered in silence and couldn’t speak out because of fear.”

She added that she hoped it would “give courage and strength to all women who are exploited in some way”.

Before he was arrested, we passed the allegations made by Madina, Nada, Batul and charity workers to Mr. Karagoz.

He denied all the allegations and stated that if they were true, more women would have come forward.

“Three people, five people, 10 people (can complain). These things happen,” he said. “If you said 100, 200 (accused me), then well, then you can believe that I really did these things.”

He also said he has diabetes and high blood pressure and showed us a medical report detailing an operation in 2016 to remove his left testicle. This means he is unable to engage in any sexual activity, he said.

However, professor of urology and specialist in men’s sexual health, Atesh Kadioglu, told the BBC that removing one testicle “doesn’t affect one’s sex life”.

We put this to Mr. Karagoz, who insisted that sexual activity was “impossible for me.”

We also told him that sexual abuse can be motivated by a desire for power and control. He responded by saying, “I personally have no such desire.”

“All we did were good deeds and this is what we get in return.”

Sadettin Karagoz said the women who accused him of assault in the past did so because he had reported them to the police for involvement in illegal activities.

All the women we spoke to denied that they or their relatives were involved in crime and the BBC saw no evidence to suggest that they were.