Stock Market Profit Program Fraud: Court of Cassation 2025/3998

A social media advertisement for "a program that makes money on the stock exchange", TL 6,500 sent in return, and a computer delivered by cargo with a stock exchange program installed on it. The buyer trades with the program and loses money. The criminal court of first instance convicts the seller of simple fraud; the regional court of appeal, without holding a hearing, sets that judgment aside on the file and acquits him. Before asking whether the seller is guilty, the question before the Court of Cassation is this: in a relationship set up over the internet, can an acquittal be entered on the file at the appeal stage without the aggravated form of the offence being discussed?

In its decision of 08.04.2025 (Docket No. (E.) 2021/39567, Decision No. (K.) 2025/3998), the 11th Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation found a clear violation of law within the scope of Article 289/1-h of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CMK) and unanimously reversed, contrary to the written opinion of the prosecutor, the acquittal of the Izmir Regional Court of Appeal, 13th Criminal Chamber, without examining its other aspects.

📣 The advertisement, the payment and the loss

The decision of the Court of Cassation recounts the alleged events briefly as follows: the defendant advertised, on the website called Twitter, which is an information system, that he had a program that was certain to make money on the stock exchange. The intervening party who saw the advertisements contacted the defendant and sent him TL 6,500 in return for a computer with a stock exchange operating program installed on it.

The defendant sent the computer to the intervening party with the program installed. The intervening party invested on the stock exchange with the program the defendant had set up and claimed to have suffered a loss. The text of the decision does not give the name of the program, the market traded or the amount of the loss; for this reason the article gives no information on those points either.

The incident fits a pattern often seen in investment fraud cases: the money is paid not directly for an "investment" but for a tool that promises profit (software, a signal group, a training package, a robot), and the loss arises from using that tool. In such cases the main debate is whether the expression "assured profit" amounts to deceit and whether a sale relationship belongs to criminal law or to private law.

🪜 Three stages of proceedings

🔎 Why did the Court of Cassation reverse?

In its review of an admissible appeal, the Chamber did not go into the merits of the dispute. The ground for reversal rests on a question of jurisdiction and procedure:

1. The act is alleged to have been committed by using an information system as a tool.
2. In that case, assessing the evidence on whether the act constitutes the qualified fraud provided for in Article 158/1-f TCK belongs to the higher-ranking assize court (heavy penal court).
3. What the regional court of appeal should have done was to reverse the first-instance court's decision on that ground.
4. Instead, the regional court of appeal, reviewing the file without holding a hearing on the basis of simple fraud, set aside the conviction and entered an acquittal as a new judgment.

The Chamber identified this as a clear violation of law within the scope of Article 289/1-h CMK; without examining the other aspects, it reversed the decision under Article 302/2 CMK and sent the case to the Izmir Regional Court of Appeal, 13th Criminal Chamber, under Article 304/2 CMK.

💻 Information systems and the Article 158/1-f distinction

Under Article 157/1 TCK, a person who deceives someone by fraudulent conduct and obtains a benefit for himself or another to that person's or another's detriment is punished with imprisonment from one to five years and a judicial fine of up to five thousand days. Article 158/1-f, by contrast, treats as a qualified form the commission of the offence "by using information systems, banks or credit institutions as a tool".

The consequences of the distinction are serious. In qualified fraud the penalty is imprisonment from three to ten years; under the last sentence of the first paragraph of the article, for the case listed in sub-paragraph (f) the lower limit of imprisonment cannot be less than four years and the judicial fine cannot be less than twice the benefit obtained from the offence. For this reason, in a relationship set up through a social media advertisement or a website, the choice between simple fraud and the qualified form is not only a matter of classification; it is also a question that determines which court has jurisdiction.

The Court of Cassation did not say in this decision that the act constitutes Article 158/1-f. What it said is which court must make that assessment when such an allegation exists. For a discussion of a similar information-tool issue, the articles on this site on Instagram forex fraudTR and on a stock market promise with a fake bank statementTR may be consulted.

🏛️ The limit of the "set aside and re-decide" power on appeal

Article 280 CMK lists the decisions a regional court of appeal may give after its review. Within that framework:

In the case at hand, instead of treating the possibility of the qualified form as a jurisdiction issue, the regional court of appeal entered a new judgment on the basis of simple fraud and without a hearing. Article 289/1-h CMK, on which the Court of Cassation relied, covers the situation where "the defence right has been restricted by a court decision on matters important for the judgment". For another example concerning the limits of the appellate authorities' power to reverse and re-decide, the decision on this site on appeal reversal where there is no mandatory defence counselTR may be consulted.

📌 Where did the case go back to? The practical result

Following the reversal, the case was sent to the Izmir Regional Court of Appeal, 13th Criminal Chamber. The appeal review will have to be carried out again in line with the Court of Cassation's reasoning. The decision contains no assessment on whether the defendant should be convicted or acquitted; the Chamber expressly used the wording "other aspects not examined".

The practical importance of the decision for cases involving investment promises is this: where a promise of profit is made on social media or through another information tool, a judgment that the first-instance court built on simple fraud cannot be removed on the file at the appeal stage without the possibility of the qualified form being discussed. Even though the intervening party's appeal was limited to the objection that "the offence was made out", this approach is an example of the Court of Cassation taking clear violations of law into account on its own motion.

❓ Short questions

For detailed information and legal support, you can contact Savun Law & Consultancy. Contact details are on the contact page, and other case law is in the Precedent DecisionsTR archive.