A leader of the Turkish mafia has alleged that he was part of a scheme run by the Turkish state that sent weapons to Islamist terror groups fighting in the Syrian civil war, that senior politicians are involved in drugs trafficking, and that the Turkish state commits covert murders against opponents. All of which was carried out with the full knowledge and support of Turkish autocrat Recep Erdogan.
The allegations were made by crime-boss Sedat Peker who fled Turkey in 2020 to avoid prosecution. Before he was an enemy of the Turkish state, he had been a staunch ally, working with the Turkish state to achieve mutual goals.
The allegations are made in a series of YouTube videos which the mafioso makes from outside Turkey. They have now been watched millions of times both in Turkey and across the world.
Peker says that in 2014 he was approached by the SADAT Turkish security services to smuggle hi-tech weapons into Syria. He says in his most recent video:
"They said, 'Let's send additional trucks to Syria.' Our trucks were sent to Syria as aid trucks and we posed for pictures with them. However, there were other trucks sent to Syria under my name. We thought that they were sent to the Turkmen rebels in another region. We knew they were carrying weapons, we're not kids. That was appropriate."
He added:
"One of our Turkmen friends said that they are al-Nusra militants. Others have also told me that the trucks sent by SADAT are for al-Nusra. It happened under my name, but I didn't send them. SADAT did."
Al-Nusra is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation that was fighting the Syrian state, under the secular leadership of Bashar Al-Assad. It was responsible for thousands of killings, mass-killings of civilians, mass-rape and torture. It is thought linked to Al-Qaeda and elements of ISIS.
It is then alleged in the videos that mass smuggling between Syria and Turkey financed these military purchases and that this was overseen by senior politicians. Peker says:
"I'm not talking about deliveries consisting of several trucks. I'm talking about those worth billions of dollars, including crude oil, tea, sugar and second-hand cars. The trade is currently carried out this way."
He also claims that former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım's son Erkam Yıldırım and former police chief and minister Mehmet Ağar are major drug-trafficking in the region.
Previous footage of trucks smuggling weapons from Turkey to Syria has previously been obtained by journalists. The journalists that collected this evidence, Can Dündar and Erdem Gül, were both later jailed by the Turkish regime.
[h/t: duvaR]
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