White House embarrassment: Uber driver posed as advisor and raked in thousands
Melih Gugbakan, a Turkish citizen who worked as an Uber driver, was arrested in New Jersey after allegedly posing as a senior official close to Donald Trump, using AI-generated images, and charging $3,000 from investor visa applicants without ever submitting their applications.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Melih Gugbakan in New Jersey, a Turkish citizen who for years cultivated a fake identity as a senior communications advisor at the White House and a close associate of the top brass of the "Trump Organization." According to a report on the "Turkey Today" website, the arrest exposed a sophisticated and sprawling scam in which Gugbakan ensnared Turkish citizens seeking to obtain E-2 investor visas for the United States.
In reality, while he presented himself on social media profiles as a senior official managing Donald Trump's international communications network, Gugbakan actually worked as an Uber driver. To establish the fake persona, he made extensive use of images created using artificial intelligence, posted fictitious tags from inside the White House, and displayed photos in which he was pictured alongside diplomats and public figures. He even approached media outlets with requests to publish articles on his behalf to bolster his image as someone close to the administration, but was rejected after failing to meet journalistic standards.
Among other things, Gugbakan used photos with former Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and with U.S. Department of Labor Inspector Anthony D'Esposito to gain the victims' trust. Soylu was quick to deny any connection to the affair, threatened legal action, and called the reports a fabrication.
The fraud method was systematic and planned: Gugbakan promised his victims that his personal connections in Washington would pave their way to obtaining residency. To increase credibility, he presented documents bearing the seal of the U.S. Congress and claimed that the legal processing was being handled by an American lawyer. Each candidate paid a sum of $3,000, but in practice, no application was ever submitted to the official immigration systems in the United States.
Gugbakan is currently being held at the "Delaney Hall" detention facility in New Jersey. Meanwhile, lawyers representing the victims of the scam are filing criminal complaints in parallel with the prosecutor's office in Turkey and cyber units in the United States.
