Drug lord Cetin G. was arrested in Turkey. His lawyer Cem Polat and the National Prosecutor’s Office confirm this. G. is transferred to the capital Ankara. It is not yet known whether and when he will be brought to the Netherlands afterwards. His appeal case is still pending.
Cetin G. escaped in April 2017. Pending his verdict, he wore an ankle strap. The Dutch judiciary assumes that he has cut it and fled.
G., a leading figure in Dutch cocaine smuggling, was arrested in Rotterdam in 2014 and sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment in December 2016. He was present at the hearing of the case, but did not show up at the verdict and appeared to be without a trace. Since that time, the man has also been sought internationally.
At the time, Cetin G. was the leader of a gang that smuggled a total of 16,000 kilos of cocaine from Latin America to Europe.
Dozens of arrests
According to Turkish media, G. was arrested in an operation that authorities say is the largest anti-drug operation in the country, Operation Swamp. The action is said to have delivered a massive blow to a network of dozens of suspects in nine countries, including the Netherlands, who allegedly trafficked 65 million euros in drugs. About 9 million have been seized so far.
More than 60 of the 94 suspects were arrested, says the Turkish minister of the interior. So among them is Cetin G., who fled the Netherlands. He is seen together with Nejat D., a drug lord who was convicted in the 90s, as the leader of the drug network. D. was arrested in May when he tried to smuggle cash from Germany to Turkey.
The preparations for the operation took more than a year.
Gülen movement
According to Turkish authorities, the network is in contact with the Gülen movement, which Turkey claims was behind the 2016 coup attempt. The criminals are said to finance the movement.
Despite the crackdown on drug smuggling, Turkey is part of the largest heroin smuggling route in the world, known as the Balkans Route, which runs from Afghanistan to Western Europe, according to the UN organization UNODC.
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