Where fraud ends and an unpaid debt begins
Fraud is deceiving a person through deceptive conduct and thereby obtaining a benefit to their detriment. The decisive element is the deception: the perpetrator must have acted to mislead the other party before the transaction was entered into.
A genuine commercial relationship in which payment difficulty arises later is, as a rule, a civil dispute rather than a crime. A substantial share of criminal complaints end in a decision not to prosecute at exactly this point: the loss is real, but no deception existing from the outset could be shown.
Committed in the course of commercial activity
Where fraud is committed by merchants, company directors or those acting on behalf of a company in the course of their commercial activities, it is an aggravated form of the offence and the sentence increases markedly.
How the events occurred, and in what capacity, therefore needs to be set out correctly in the complaint. The same facts can be treated as an ordinary debt dispute when described incompletely, and investigated as aggravated fraud when the elements are properly established.
The effect of the prudent merchant principle
Turkish law expects every merchant to act as a prudent business person in their commercial activities. The principle means a merchant bears the consequences of their own carelessness, and it has an indirect effect in criminal investigations too.
A merchant who enters into a high-value transaction with no contract, without checking the counterparty’s commercial history and without taking security will often find that the argument "I was deceived" is treated at the prosecution stage as a civil dispute. A level of trust that may be reasonable between individuals does not attract the same protection in a commercial relationship.
- Written contracts and delivery records
- Checking the counterparty’s trade registry and credit record beforehand
- Security or part payment in advance on high-value transactions
- Keeping correspondence and reconciliations on record
After a decision not to prosecute
Where the investigation ends in a decision not to prosecute, that decision may be challenged before the criminal judgeship within the prescribed period. Submitting new evidence and establishing the element of deception through concrete facts can change the outcome.
A decision not to prosecute does not mean the loss cannot be recovered. Independently of the criminal route, the receivable can be pursued through enforcement and litigation, and claims in tort assessed separately.
Frequently asked questions
They took delivery and never paid. Is that fraud?
Non-payment alone is not, as a rule, an offence. Fraud requires deceptive conduct intended to mislead before the transaction was entered into — the use of false documents, or the display of a capacity that never existed, are the kinds of element that matter.
The prosecutor decided not to prosecute. Is there anything I can do?
The decision can be challenged before the criminal judgeship within the prescribed period. Independently, the receivable can still be pursued and damages claimed through the civil courts.
Is commercial fraud punished differently from ordinary fraud?
Committing the offence as a merchant or company director in the course of commercial activity is an aggravated form and carries a higher sentence. That is why the capacity in which the events occurred must be established in the complaint.