Turkey’s Narco-Authoritarian Turn: How Organized Crime Became a Tool of Power

GIGA report reveals deep links between Erdogan’s ruling alliance, criminal networks, and state institutions — as Turkey evolves from transit hub to major player in the global drug trade.

Once hailed as a democratic model for the Muslim world, Turkey has increasingly transformed into a hub for organized crime, money laundering, and narcotics trafficking — a shift closely tied to the country’s growing authoritarianism.
That’s the conclusion of a new report by the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), written by political scientist Hakkı Taş, who calls this trend “Turkey’s narco-authoritarian turn.”

According to the study, criminal networks, political repression, and systemic corruption have merged, reinforcing one another within an ecosystem where the boundaries between the state and the underworld have largely dissolved. Taş argues that the ruling alliance between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s AKP and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) has institutionalized this convergence — transforming what was once a fragile democracy into what he calls a mafia playground.

A Murder That Symbolized a System

The report opens with the January 2025 killing of 14-year-old Mattia Ahmet Minguzzi in an Istanbul market — a crime that shocked the nation. The victim’s family was later threatened by the Daltonlar gang, until notorious mob boss Sedat Peker publicly intervened on their behalf.
For Taş, this episode symbolized a broader reality: organized crime in today’s Turkey acts openly and often exerts more practical power than official institutions.

From Transit Country to Drug Powerhouse

Once a transit point for Afghan heroin moving west, Turkey has now become a key broker in the global cocaine trade, the report finds. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) shows that cocaine seizures in Turkey have increased sevenfold since 2014, rising from small quantities to several tons per year.

GIGA’s research indicates that Turkish criminal networks are now working directly with Mexican and Colombian cartels, while domestic laboratories have expanded into heroin and methamphetamine production.

Taş argues that this transformation has unfolded alongside the collapse of checks and balances under Erdoğan’s increasingly centralized rule. Following the 2016 coup attempt and the 2018 shift to a presidential system, power was consolidated in the presidency — enabling selective enforcement of the law and granting de facto impunity to political and criminal allies.

How Politics and the Underworld Converged

Turkey’s deep state–mafia nexus is not new. But GIGA says the relationship deepened dramatically after the 2013 corruption scandal, which exposed illicit gold-for-oil transactions with Iran. Instead of pursuing accountability, the government purged prosecutors and investigators, effectively legitimizing corruption.

This, the report notes, marked the start of a new political economy where organized crime became an extension of the regime’s survival strategy.

In 2018, Erdoğan formalized his alliance with MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli, cementing parliamentary dominance and restoring influence to long-dormant crime figures.
Bahçeli’s support for the 2020 release of mafia boss Alaattin Çakıcı, convicted of murder and extortion, became emblematic of that shift — Çakıcı soon endorsed the ruling coalition.

The Soylu Connection

Former interior minister Süleyman Soylu is presented as a key figure illustrating the overlap between politics and organized crime.
During his tenure, prosecutors dropped numerous cases against Ankara-based mob leader Ayhan Bora Kaplan, accused of drug trafficking and extortion. Only after Soylu’s 2023 resignation did police move against Kaplan — whose companies had reportedly received state-backed loans.

GIGA suggests that figures like Sedat Peker, who once rallied for the AKP and threatened dissenting academics, were used as informal enforcers of regime narratives.
Courts, meanwhile, treated his violent rhetoric as protected political speech.

A Global Network — and a Safe Haven

The report also highlights how Turkish criminal networks have expanded across Europe, linking them to operations in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Europol has identified Turkish nationals as central players in cocaine, cannabis, and money-laundering operations. Italian prosecutors in 2024 arrested Barış Boyun, the Daltonlar gang leader, in connection with drug production in Bulgaria and multiple assassinations in Berlin.

Turkey has also emerged as a haven for international fugitives.
Between 2016 and 2023, a series of tax amnesties and a citizenship-by-investment program opened the door to unregulated foreign capital.
Applicants could acquire Turkish citizenship through real-estate purchases worth just $250,000 (later raised to $600,000). Among those who obtained passports, the report names Swedish-Kurdish gang leader Rawa Majid and Dutch cocaine trafficker Joseph Leijdekkers — one of Europe’s most wanted men.

In 2023, three Istanbul judges were suspended for allegedly taking bribes to release Leijdekkers’ associates. Another scandal involved Burhan Kuzu, a late AKP co-founder and Erdoğan confidant, accused of pressuring courts to free an Iranian drug trafficker.
GIGA cites these as evidence of systemic judicial corruption underpinning impunity for organized crime.

A Criminalized Economy, a Complicit State

While Ankara occasionally stages high-profile anti-drug operations, Taş concludes that law enforcement remains selective and politically motivated.
According to the report, patronage networks, crony contracting, and opaque financing have embedded organized crime into the architecture of governance.

Istanbul and Antalya have become hubs where Balkan clans, Italian ‘Ndrangheta members, Russian oligarchs, and Middle Eastern traffickers converge. Turkey’s relaxed financial oversight — designed to attract foreign capital — has instead created fertile ground for money laundering and illicit finance.

Though the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) removed Turkey from its gray list in 2024, GIGA argues that “the underlying culture of impunity remains unchanged.”

Europe’s Growing Concern

The spread of Turkish crime networks into European markets has alarmed law enforcement agencies.
Violent turf wars in Istanbul have been mirrored in Berlin and Barcelona, while Europol’s 2024 report described Turkish groups as “poly-criminal,” active in financial fraud as well as drug smuggling.

Taş frames the situation as a feedback loop: authoritarian consolidation enables criminal networks, and those networks in turn sustain the regime through money, intimidation, and extralegal power.
He calls it a “narco-authoritarian governance model” — where crime is no longer an external threat to the state, but an integral part of how it rules.

What Should Europe Do?

The GIGA report urges the European Union to anchor its engagement with Ankara on judicial independence, financial transparency, and rule-of-law conditionality.
It recommends joint investigations with Europol and Latin American partners to disrupt cocaine routes, and long-term support for independent media and civil society in Turkey.

Taş concludes with a stark warning:

“Authoritarianism and organized crime are interdependent phenomena. Treating them separately risks underestimating their impact — not just on Turkey, but on European security itself.”

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