Colombia-based cartel's cocaine route to Turkey uncovered

According to information obtained, the operation conducted in Istanbul and Bursa against cocaine smugglers attempting to ship drugs to Turkey from a Colombia-based drug cartel in South America was announced yesterday by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya, with the report that 9 drug traffickers had been apprehended.

ROUTE DECIPHERED

A drug operation conducted by Istanbul police has uncovered a cocaine route extending from a Colombia-based cartel to Turkey.

The cocaine was attempted to be brought to Turkey via sea, following a route through Colombia, the US, and Europe, hidden among various food and consumer goods shipments.

The cocaine, which was shipped by sea, was offloaded at Gemlik Port via Italy.

Having tracked the large quantity of cocaine for days after it departed from South America and was nearing Turkey, Istanbul police received intelligence that a Colombia-based cartel was attempting to transfer it to Turkey by sea.

MULTI-FACETED CONTROL MECHANISM DEVELOPED

Launching a multi-faceted investigation in line with the information obtained, the Istanbul Narcotics Crimes Division obtained authorization for the operation from the Büyükçekmece Chief Public Prosecutor's Office.

Within the scope of the investigation, it was learned that a member of the cartel would come to Turkey to organize the shipment. Drug agents, who carried out meticulous work to determine the route and time of the cartel member's arrival in the country, also placed the connections of the cocaine shipment in Turkey under surveillance.

Police, who followed the cartel members—assessed to be engaged in large-scale drug trafficking—for a certain period with drone support, determined that the network members were extremely cautious regarding technical and physical surveillance and had developed various control mechanisms using their own methods.

Police determined that the suspects, who initially started their daily lives using mopeds, continued with commercial taxis, and later maintained their working methods using vehicles rented under other people's names. Security teams deciphered that the drug smugglers frequently changed vehicles on the highway and passed through the same route approximately 5 times to test whether they were being followed by police while heading to their target point.

The police, who solved the drug cartel's activities with great precision, determined during the work that a house was rented in Istanbul under a different name, that they placed items there, and that the network members would use the address as a so-called "headquarters." The house rented by the suspects was placed under surveillance day and night, and it was understood during the observation that a member of the Colombia-based cartel had settled there.

ALL CARGO SHIPS PLACED UNDER SURVEILLANCE

The police, suspicious of the suspect hiding in Istanbul constantly traveling back and forth to the Gemlik district of Bursa at different times, expanded their work. Determining that the drugs would be brought into the country by sea, narcotics police went on alert at all ports. They took control of and analyzed all cargo ships and containers arriving from Europe and docking at Istanbul and Gemlik Port.

COLOMBIAN DRUG SMUGGLER CAUGHT AT AIRPORT

The teams, who identified the drug-laden ship within the framework of the ongoing investigation, carried out the operation with the support of Bursa police.

In the operation, 8 suspects linked to the Colombia-based drug cartel were apprehended, and 373 kilograms of cocaine were seized during the searches. Meanwhile, a Colombian suspect who noticed the operation at the last moment was detained by the teams while trying to flee to his country from the airport.

The interrogations of the 9 suspects caught in the operation against international drug smugglers continue at the police station.

POLICE INVESTIGATING THE CARTEL

Istanbul Police are investigating the cartel behind the drugs, which are understood to have been shipped from the Latin American country of Colombia. Colombia, which hosts many cartels, is a country located in the middle of the Andes mountain region, with land borders to Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, and sea borders opening to the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean. Numerous cartels, primarily the Medellin cartel and the Cali cartel, founded by the drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria, who was killed in 1993, are based in Colombia.

News Source: İHA