Turkish mafia boss accuses Erdogan government of drug and weapon trafficking
In Turkey, a scandal continues after the exiled head of the local mafia has accused the Turkish government of drug and weapon trafficking. There have been reports of his detention, but they remain unconfirmed. So who is Sedat Peker, what is he accusing the Turkish government of and why has he become a problem for President Erdogan and his ministers?
Sedat Peker, known as the leader of an organized crime group
who is currently residing in an undefined place outside Turkey, has been posting
videos on his YouTube channel.
In his video messages, Peker reports on the corruption of
the current and former Turkish authorities, heads of security agencies,
authoritative politicians and businessmen. Peker’s video series expose major
financial frauds, including drug trafficking via Venezuela and illegal arms
shipments to Syria.
Reports of Sedat Peker’s arrest
For the first time since his new video was posted last
weekend, Peker did not reach out to his followers on social media with a new
video. On June 13, several sources reported that he was arrested at his home in
the United Arab Emirates as a result of a special operation carried out by the
Turkish National Intelligence Organization together with Qatari colleagues.
Sedat Peker’s lawyer, Ozlem Gyurses, denied these reports
but his location remains unknown as well as the reasons why he disappeared from
social media.
Minister of the Interior and ‘troll factory’
One of the most discussed statements of Sedat Peker is one
about the current Minister of Internal Affairs of Turkey, Suleiman Soil.
In one of his videos, the head of the mafia noted that he
had been friends with Soylu’s father for 30 years, supported the current
minister during the early stages of his career. When Soylu became minister, he
protected Peker out of gratitude for his support.
Peker begins his address with the words: “Suleiman Soylu, do
you remember how you informed me that a criminal case has been launched against
me, promised to warn me if the case took a dangerous scenario, and provided a
police guard for me?”
Peker then explains how he supported the minister via social
media by creating bot accounts and launching campaigns on the news outlets
under his control: “Remember those 1.3 million tweets in your favor? All these
records have been preserved”, says Sedat Peker.
The campaign was launched when the minister found himself in
a crisis in April 2020. Back then, due to the outbreak of the coronavirus
pandemic in Turkey, people in 30 major cities have been banned from going
outside for 48 hours.
The announcement was made just a few hours before the start
of the restrictions. As a result, crowds of people in these cities literally
attacked grocery stores and hundreds of thousands of people on social media
accused Interior Minister Suleiman Soila of the poor handling of the crisis and
demanded his resignation.
However, a total of 1,00,3,000 users supported Soila. He
nevertheless resigned, but two hours later the president announced that he
would not accept the minister’s resignation. Peker spoke about those events in
his video.
After Peker’s allegations, Soylu replied to his opponent on
social media: “I turned to the prosecutor’s office to investigate the
allegation and false accusations and to clarify everything. I believe in a fair
trial. You, too, do not hide, like a mouse, come to your country and surrender to
justice”.
Son of a former prime minister and cocaine trafficking
routes
In another scandalous statement, Sedat Peker speaks of the
son of the former Turkish Prime Minister, deputy chairman of the ruling Justice
and Development Party (AKP) Binali Yıldırım.
Peker claims that recently the center of the cocaine trade
has moved from Colombia to Venezuela, and “Binali Yildirim’s son Erkam Yildirim
visited Venezuela in order to create a new drug route earlier this year”.
In December 2020, Erkam Yildirim announced his visit to
Venezuela on social media. According to him, the visit was related to
humanitarian issues. The ex-head of the Turkish government said in response to
the accusations: “He went here to distribute Covid-19 tests, masks, and other
items to those in need”.
Like Soylu, Binali Yildirim turned to the prosecutor’s
office over Sedat Peker’s allegations. According to their statements, the court
has already ruled to arrest the head of the mafia and put him on the wanted
list through Interpol.
President promises to find and arrest Peker
Recep Tayyip Erdogan supported the members of his team and
referred to Sedat Peker’s statements as an integral part of the incriminating
activities of external forces against Turkey.
“No one should doubt that these heinous operations will end
in failure. We are pursuing members of criminal gangs, wherever they are, all
over the world. We will not stop until we bring them to the country and bring
them to justice”, Erdogan said.
Sedat Peker’s address to President Erdogan
Before Erdogan’s statements, Sedat Peker never mentioned him
in his videos, however, he has recently published a video directly addressing
the president.
“Will you change the truth if you bring me to the country,
my brother Tayyip? If I am a spy, henceforth in my videos I will speak when we
met. I am sure that what I said will also be checked on a lie detector. If
something turns out not to be what I say, I will shoot myself in the head”,
Pecker said.
Allegations of weapon supplies to Syria
In the same video, Sedat Peker described how his convoys
were used to supply weapons to the Al-Nusra armed group under the guise of
humanitarian aid to the Syrian Turkmans.
“… There were other cars that went under my name. We were
told that they were going to help the Turkmans. And we didn’t know what was in
the cars. Well, as I say, we don’t know. But there were weapons, we are not
that naive. I have nothing to do with them, but they went under my name.
Without registration, without any verification”, said Peker.
The head of the mafia says that those wishing to conduct
trade in Syria must agree on this personally with the head of the presidential
affairs department Metin Kyratli:
“I’m not talking about a trade of goods in one or two
trucks. I mean large volumes. Smuggled oil, tea, sugar, aluminum, copper, used
cars. There are billions of dollars in it”.
Erdogan forbids responding to Pecker’s accusations
On June 10, the Turkish President and chairman of the ruling
AKP party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, banned the government officials from
responding to Peker’s statements, as “this could lead the reasoning in
undesirable directions”.
Erdogan also banned parliament from starting any investigations
based on the statements of the head of the mafia.
Half of the country’s population trusts Pecker’s claims
Since the publication of revealing videos, the number of
subscribers to Sedat Peker’s YouTube channel has grown from 400,000 to 1.1
million. The videos themselves have already been watched over 100 million
times.
According to a survey by MetroPOLL, 48.3% of respondents
believe that Pecker’s statements are true or mostly true. 18% of the
respondents believe that a small part of his statements is true, and 22.5% of
the respondents do not trust these statements.
To the question “Do you believe that mafia groups are
protected by someone?” 61.2% percent of the respondents answered in the
affirmative and 22.6% of respondents were against such a possibility.
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