Historically, heroin crossed from the Middle East to Europe, MDMA (also called “ecstasy”) and opiates (opium, morphine, codeine) instead traveled from Europe to the Middle East, while marijuana sailed back and forth. Today, cocaine has changed the game, and particularly that arriving in Turkey, then redistributed in the Middle East, Europe and Russia, according to an article by the NGO Insight Crime [qui finance des investigations journalistiques].
The expansion of the cocaine trade in Turkey is largely due to the involvement of the authorities, “police, customs, prosecutors, judges and military” maintaining a system of institutional corruption, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan would be well aware of, the article points out.
Indeed, the coup attempt against the head of state in 2016 created an unprecedented opportunity for drug traffickers: police officers were fired and replaced by regime loyalists. Corruption, already common, was thus accelerated.
“The message for newly assigned officers