A whistleblower has told prosecutors that Istanbul’s emergency water reserves were quietly reclassified and pumped to private data parks during June and July 2026, depriving tens of thousands of households across three districts of predictable supplies. The source, a senior technician who worked on municipal pumping systems, handed a 12‑minute internal audio and daily pump logs to The Plausible Post and to the Turkish Water Oversight Agency (TWOA) on Tuesday, 23 September.
Municipal files and the logs provided to prosecutors show 60 megalitres (60,000,000 litres) were redirected from a 120‑megalitre reserve between 18 June and 2 August — a period that included a sustained heatwave and water restrictions in parts of the city. City officials and the companies involved say contracts allowed some commercial use; residents and the whistleblower say the transfers breached emergency rules.
How the transfers worked
The whistleblower, 36‑year‑old Puji Rajata, said he was ordered to alter flow records so the municipal computer system showed the water remained in the emergency buffer while physical valves opened to private delivery lines. "I altered the readouts and closed my eyes every time the pump switched over," Rajata told this paper in an interview. He supplied timestamps, meter serial numbers and a recording of a superintendent instructing staff to 'classify the draw as resilience testing.'
I gave my life to keep those pipes honest. When I heard the mayoral deputy say the reserve could be 'temporarily reallocated,' I realised people would be left without water. I could not let that stand.
Puji Rajata, senior pump technician
Residents and reaction
In affected neighbourhoods, people say taps ran dry for days. "My mother woke up with no water for her medicine and could not wash. Those were the worst two weeks I remember," said Regina Angulo‑Peres, who lives in Fatih and collected bottled water for elderly neighbours. The Istanbul municipality office said the transfers followed a resilience partnership with private operators and denied any unlawful conduct. TWOA said it had begun on‑site checks and subpoenaed company contracts.
Wider consequences
Tech consultant Alexis Gusikowski reviewed the logs and the municipal register for this paper and said the transfers exploited a legal gap: "The city’s emergency buffer statute did not define how much of a reserve could be rebranded as 'commercial resilience.' That allowed operators to claim access." The four data parks named in the whistleblower’s documents — operating under the trade names MarmaraCloud, NorthGate Data, Bosphorix and SilverNode — issued a joint statement saying they paid municipal fees and had not caused any shortages.
Prosecutors in Istanbul confirmed they had received material from Rajata and had launched a preliminary probe into potential misuse of public resources. Legal experts say the case could trigger fines measured in millions of lira and force tougher limits on public–private resilience deals ahead of local elections next year. Rajata says he has received threats since handing over the files and is staying with a relative in Anadolu, but he says he expects to testify before magistrates next week.
