On Monday (March 27) Peruvian National Police seized 2.3 tons of cocaine in a warehouse in the Port of Callao, disguised as ceramic tiles. The authorities stated that the shipment was worth at least 20 million dollars. This is only the latest bust of illicit substances destined for Turkey, as the nation has become a hotbed for smugglers in recent years.
Turkey has been dealing with a rise in drug use in recent years as diseases of despair are on the rise. Though there have been previous seizures of cocaine originating from Latin America destined for Turkey, this is a first for the Peruvian Police.
Speaking to Reuters, El Callao’s police chief, Colonel Luis Angel Bolanos said: “This is the first incident that we know of (in which the cargo was in) Peruvian ports and its final destination was Turkey. Usually we are aware of ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and France,”
In the last few years, Turkey has experienced an explosion in cocaine and heroin imports from Latin America. Turkey has been a transit hub for Afghani heroin since the 1960’s, lately however, Turkey has also become a significant consumer, as opposed to just another stop on the smuggling route.
On May 6th, 2021, 616 packs of heroin destined for Turkey were apprehended in Panama’s port of Balboa. In October of 2020 220 kilos of cocaine disguised as letter sized paper was apprehended in Brazil. In June of the same year, a 4.9 ton cocaine bust took place in Colombia. All these shipments were destined for Turkey’s port of Mersin. – These are only a few of the innumerable busts that have taken place in the last few years.
In August 2020, the Minister of Agriculture made a bizarre and out-of-the-blue announcement that Turkey would import duty free cheese from Venezuela. Shortly after, the authorities busted 108 packets of heroin in a cheese truck. Drug busts like this first began to arouse suspicion that the increased smuggling traffic into Turkey might not just be the smugglers doing but the authorities may actually be involved.
The massive proliferation of illicit substances in Turkey may not necessarily be the work of increased demand alone as some accuse the authorities of being in bed with the smugglers. – Namely, the current presidential candidate and a favorite to win, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, who has accused the government of turning a blind eye to the drug trade. Kılıçdaroğlu has accused the government of allowing or even facilitating the drug trade, in order to attract dark money into the country in an effort to close its 5.9 trillion dollar deficit.
Medyascope’s Buket Topaktaş conducted an interview with a drug dealer in December last year. Dealer using the pseudonym “Volkan” accused the government of both being aware of the shipments and the police of taking bribes to turn a blind eye to the business.
Volkan claims that they were able to sell with ease and some police officers were in on it.
“The police have secret police and informants in every neighborhood. They get a lot of complaints by the residents. The police would come into the neighborhoods that we operated in and they would look into us. But they would see how much money we made. They would threaten to arrest us. We would tell them that this is big business, if you jail us, someone else will take our place. After that, it was just a negotiation.”
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“75% of the drugs in the country come from abroad. You can’t bring in that much without people high up in the government knowing about it. It’s impossible. Are the higher ups doing their jobs, or are they facilitating the drug trade? Since it’s an illegal business, it’s 100% profit. You see on the news that they do busts sometimes. Those are busts of goods that came in without the prior knowledge of the higher ups. Sure, they show you how much they caught. But how much did they let go? I dare them to show their own product.”
Volkan also adds that the government isn’t necessarily honest with the amount of the drugs seized and not all of the seized drugs are destroyed.
“The people at the top do nothing. Nothing. They say, oh, we caught this much drugs and they’ve been destroyed. No, They destroy about 5 kilos out of a bust of 50. 45 kilos disappear. It goes back on the market.
