A United Nations report into drug smuggling appears to support the claims made by a Turkish mafia boss that prominent Turkish politicians, and their allies, are involved in massive drug trafficking.
The United Nations report states that politicians and diplomats have been using diplomatic trade routes, and the fact they can't be searched, to smuggle large amounts of drugs across international borders.
Sedat Peker, a Turkish mafia boss, who is in hiding in Dubai, has previously stated that the son of Turkey's former Prime Minister Binali Yildirim travelled frequently to the Venezuelan capital Caracas in order to ship as much as 5 tonnes of cocaine.
Yildrim has denied he is involved in drug smuggling and says that he travelled to Venezuela to transport protective equipment to doctors and nurses. In the UN report, it is stated that actors had used the cover of transporting personal protective equipment to smuggle drugs.
Yildrim is now deputy leader of Recep Erdogan's AKP party, which rules over Turkey and is widely considered authoritarian and corrupt.
Prof. Sevil Atasoy, a Turkish member of the UN International Narcotics Control Board, said of Yildrim:
"They began using the mail or postal services, even protective masks, gloves and disinfectants to give the impression that they were trading medical equipment rather than drugs."
The report went on to say:
"The Balkan route, which passed through Iran, Turkey and the Balkan countries on the way to destination markets in western and central Europe, remained the main route for the trafficking of opiates originating in Afghanistan."
Turkey is known to have dropped all customs tariffs on Venezuela in the last year, something considered bizarre at the time by the international community, many of whom support sanctions against the Latin American nation.
Turkish opposition leaders have raised alarm at the revelations about drug smuggling, but the opposition is largely incapacitated due to Turkey's authoritarian leader Erdogan who has arrested and imprisoned thousands of opponents and banned the opposition media.
Sedat Peker has also claimed that Turkey supplied weapons to Islamic extremists during the Syrian Civil War.
[h/t: Arab News]
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