Istanbul Police Chief Hüseyin Çapkın has been dismissed from his post today along with dozens of police commissioners following a major corruption investigation that ended up with the detention of dozens of people, including the sons of three ministers, businessmen and senior bureaucrats.

Two of Çapkın's assistants, from the Organized Crimes Bureau and the Financial Crimes Bureau, as well as four assistant chiefs, including chiefs involved in the execution of a corruption operation targeting high-profile figures, were also dismissed from their posts.

After eleven police chiefs were removed their posts in İstanbul, the governor of Ankara also removed 18 police chiefs.

Two police officers, one a chief, have been removed from their posts in Kocaeli province today.

Three more police chiefs have been dismissed from their posts in the western province of İzmir on Thursday.

The dismissals came following a series of dawn raids police staged in Istanbul and Ankara on 17 December as part of a probe into tender fraud and bribery operation allegations.

The sons of three Cabinet members, Interior Minister Muammer Güler, Economy Minister Zafer Çağalayan and Environment and Urbanization Minister Erdoğan Bayraktar, were among the detained. Barış Güler, Salih Kaan Çağlayan and Abdullah Oğuz Bayraktar were detained on accusations of bribery.

Among the detainees were also Turkish construction tycoon Ali Ağaoğlu, Halkbank General Manager Süleyman Aslan and Azerbaijani businessman Reza Zarrab, AKP Fatih Mayor Mustafa Demir and civil servants from the Environment Ministry and the Economy Ministry.

Thirty-eight of those detained, including construction tycoon Ali Ağaoğlu and Fatih Mayor Mustafa Demir, were taken to the Haseki Hospital for medical check-ups on Thursday.

Forty-two suspects are still being held for interrogation and it has been requested that 28 suspects' detention periods be extended. Nine have been referred to court in the afternoon.