A shipment of cocaine worth $20 million was seized en route to Turkey’s Istanbul by Peru’s anti-drug police on 24 March.
2.3 tonnes of the drug were found at the Peruvian port of El Callao, the country’s main maritime terminal, packed in rubber sheets and disguised amidst hundreds of boxes of ceramic tiles. El Callao’s police chief, Colonel Luis Angel Bolaños said that the European street price for the hoard was between $50,000 and $60,000 per kilogram.
Turkey has become an emerging route for large-scale cocaine trafficking. In an unprecedented development, reports show the possibility of a politically connected new player moving large quantities of the drug through Turkish seaports.
In June 2020, Colombia’s narcotics police seized five tons of cocaine stashed in containers set to travel by sea from the port of Buenaventura to Turkey, with an illegal street market value of $265 million.
In 2021, whistle-blower mob boss Sedat Peker made international drug trafficking allegations against Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).
In March 2021, police detained an AKP research and development employee, Kürşat Ayvatoğlu, after a video emerged showing him snorting cocaine. Ayvatoğlu claimed that the substance was powdered sugar and was released on bail.
In a 2022 report, investigative organisation InSight Crime revealed that Turkish gangs have a major interest in the drug trade and have turned Turkey into a global trafficking hub for South American cocaine. These key players supply the narcotic to emerging markets in Russia, the Balkans, and to a new desert cocaine route through northern Iraq into the Persian Gulf.
Turkish smugglers send 60-70 percent of their product to the Persian Gulf, and the remaining 30 percent is split between the Balkans and Caucasus, but most significantly, Russia, noted experts at InSight Crime.
The Persian Gulf is the most profitable destination market for cocaine trafficking through Turkey, as a gram of cocaine retails for $500 in Saudi Arabia, according to a report by Vice.
Meanwhile, the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) proposed a motion in the Turkish parliament in November 2022, to investigate allegations of drug trafficking in the country, which was rejected by the AKP and its ally, the ultra-right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). HDP lawmaker Rıdvan Turan said the Mersin International Port was vital for drug trafficking in Turkey and that it was “clear” where the drugs came from and how they were transported.
The leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, accused the AKP, in particular Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu, of drug trafficking. Meanwhile, Soylu claimed that Turkish law enforcement detains an average of 5,000 drug dealers or producers per week.
