Police are scouring rooftops in Turkmenistan for Starlink satellite Internet terminals as residents seek to sidestep sluggish and restricted connections, locals say.
In the eastern city of Turkmenabat, residents have described searches by teams of local officials and law enforcement.
“They come and go straight to the roof,” one Turkmenabat resident told RFE/RL‘s Turkmen Service on condition of anonymity. “They check who has what. If a Starlink system is found, they take the device away," the local said.
Some residents allegedly linked to the devices, made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are being arrested and held in police stations, sources in the country say.
The center of Turkmenabat, the eastern city where rooftop raids for Starlink terminals are being reported.
As well as the door-knocking checks from police, a resident of Turkmenabat says that “spies” in teams of telecoms workers, who routinely access apartment rooftops, are also being used to report Starlink terminals.
“The technicians have people among them who report what kind of antennas are where," the local said.
RFE/RL’s calls to a Turkmenabat police station seeking comment on the raids went unanswered.
Independent media that focuses on Turkmenistan say the Starlink raids have been ongoing since mid-April. The inspections “have included searches of residential, office, and commercial buildings,” according to the Turkmen.news portal.
Starlink terminals began appearing in Turkmenistan in late 2025 amid frequent interruptions to Internet that was already among the slowest and most restrictive in the world.
A local from the northern city of Dashoguz told RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service in November 2025 that, “a small number of wealthy households are joining forces with their neighbors, pooling their money, and buying Starlink equipment from Dubai.” The families, “deposit the money in a foreign bank and then pay a monthly subscription fee to use it,” the resident explained.
An apartment covered in satellite television dishes in Mary, Turkmenistan. Since this 2015 photo was taken, Turkmen authorities launched a crackdown on satellite dishes.
With its Internet speeds of around four megabits per second, data that takes a full minute to load in Turkmenistan would be received within a second in countries with fast networks. Starlink download speeds are rated from 100-300 megabits per second depending on the pricing plan, and the satellite Internet is not subject to local censorship.
Turkmenistan is one of the most closed countries in the world and has heavily restricted and monitored Internet use.
Ashgabat has previously claimed Internet restrictions are to prevent "actions that disrupt social order and propagate terrorism, extremism, ultra-nationalism, and other illegal activities."