Drug smuggling as the main financial source of PKK terrorism

w w w . t u r k i s h w e e k l y . n e t

Drug Smuggling As the Main Financial Source of PKK Terrorism

By Sedat Laciner

* Drug Smuggling, Organized Crime and Terrorism

Some claim that Turkey is one of the transit countries of drug trafficking and therefore she is not a consumer country; so the fight against narcotics should not be one of the main concerns of Turkey. Even, within some conversations, it is possible to encounter certain arguments claiming that narcotic money has an additional value for Turkey. Data on drug usage verifies the fact that Turkey is not a crucial drug consumption market; it is mostly a transit country. Due to drug smuggling, billions of dollars have entered the country. However, this is not the entire picture. To categorize Turkey solely as a “transit country” is not sufficient.

It must be noted that in the mean time, Turkey has emerged to become one of the crucial narcotic centers of the world. As each drug bag passes through Istanbul or other Turkish cities to reach Western Europe it turns back as terror, organized crime, street violence and loss of government authority in Turkey.Besides, this process has been continuing on for decades; the drug-violence-degeneration triangle has insidiously raised the prejudice against Turkey internally.

It is important that drug trucks that pass from Turkey should be stopped so as to re-construct order in Turkey and more importantly to re-gain government authority. In this study we will focus on the connection between PKK terrorism and drug smuggling. Although certain renowned sources of Turkish, European and American descent and other media reports reveal that PKK members control the European drug cartel and that they even used children to sell drugs, the connection is not a well-studied one.

The Economic Basis of Terrorism

Terrorist organizations are based on two main columns:

The first one is an ideological/political base. Terrorist organizations are renowned for exploiting the mistakes of states and areas where state authority is deficient; it can be observed that as these organizations increase their exploitation facilities, they tend to grow faster.

The second important column that terrorist organizations are based on is the economic infrastructure. Money is recruited for weapons, explosive materials, daily needs of terrorists etc. Contrary to the common perception, countries do not pay in cash to terrorist organizations. When other countries want to assist the PKK, they prefer to use other “natural ways”.

There are four fundamental principles which help to maintain the economic infrastructure of terrorism:

1. tribute \ blackmailing \ donation

2. robbery

3. narcotic money

4. other illegal revenue

If we move from the presumption that the world drug market is approximately worth 400-500 billion dollars, we can see that this amount is enough not only to sustain terrorist organizations but also individual countries. The money which circulates in the drug market is almost equivalent to US annual defense expenditure.

It is argued that PKK has at certain points in time controlled 80 % of the European market which constitutes one of the main segments of the huge world market. This helps to clarify how the PKK has been able to sustain itself for more than two decades. Michael Radu asserts that "Considering the range of PKK drug trafficking in Europe (Germany, France, Denmark, Romania, Switzerland, Belgium and Netherlands), the group is wealthy indeed". Radu further argues that the PKK's annual income from drug trafficking, robberies, extortion, emigrant and arms smuggling reached ten millions of dollars in the 1990s CNN International further confirms Mr. Radu’s claim by drawing attention to the organized crime and drug smuggling affairs of the PKK with the following statement: "By many accounts from inside and outside Turkey, Ocalan is a dogmatic and tyrannical leader whose organization is involved in drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, arson, blackmail and money laundering."

It has been noted that in 2008 alone, the drug income of the PKK had reached more than 500 million euros. According to Soner Cagaptay, the figure is actually much higher than 500 million euros. Cagaptay claims that approximately 2.5 billion narcotic dollars go to the PKK. Through these facts, it becomes obvious that the PKK has been financing its activities through illegal means and drug trafficking has had a great share in this budget.

PKK Discovers Narcotic Money

When the PKK emerged as a terrorist organization, it did not take it very long to discover the benefits of drug smuggling. From the beginning of the 1980s, it has become active in both production and transportation sectors of illegal drug business. In the year 1982, the PKK began to produce hemp and opium poppy in Lebanese camps (Baelbek and Hermen) that were under Syrian control. Ports of Beirut, Sayda, Sur, Miryan, Abdeh and Tripoli were the main transit points of this transaction. Drugs were sent to the ports of Greek Cyprus, Greece and Italy; and through this venue the terrorist organization has been able to sustain a significant amount of revenue for many years.

It is unfortunate that Syria, Greek Cyprus and Greece ignored (or supported) the PKK drug business in order to support the terrorist organization against Turkey.

In the beginning of the 1980s, PKK became active in the line extending from Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran line and then which crosses Turkey and reaches to Europe. These three countries are commonly known as the “golden crescent” for drug smuggling. In addition to the ‘Golden Crescent’, Laos – Thailand - Birmania countries are ‘Golden Triangle’and these three are also known as the centers of drug production and smuggling in the continent Asia.

In other words, it should be noted that the main producer countries are located in the east of Turkey. Thus, Turkey is one of the main routes for the European drug market. It can be observed that it certainly did not take too long for the PKK militants to realize the importance of their ‘lucky position’ in terms of controlling drug trafficking between the East and the West.

Terrorists became aware of the huge wealth involved in this business and began their interactions by allowing transition and sustaining “security services” for ordinary smugglers. In this context , PKK terrorist organization is not an exception and it "taxed" those who smuggled drugs, arms, and other valuable goods in the 1980s and 1990s.During the 1980s, it was certainly not difficult for the PKK to conduct international drug transportation in the region as it was organized almost in every district and village of eastern Turkey.

When its infrastructure and organizational schema became sophisticated in Istanbul, drug dispatching and distribution has become easier for the PKK in European market. Especially, on the Afghanistan-Iran-Turkey-Eastern Europe-Southern Europe-West Europe route, tons of morphine, heroin, liquid hashish and other drug materials were transferred under PKK control.

Moreover, increasing instability in Iraq, the Iran-Iraq-Turkey-Western Europe route has became more popular for drug smuggling. As Michael Rubin pointed out that different from the KDP and the KPU, the PKK still facilitates drug smuggling from Iran through Iraq and Turkey and into Europe.The PKK has not only played a significant role in drug transportation in the East-West route, but also in the West-East route for the transportation of chemical goods used for processing of raw drug materials in the East. At the end of the 1980s, the organization came to realize that the real money was in the drug processing business. When raw drug materials are processed, their prices increase geometrically. At that point the PKK began to construct processing drug laboratories initially in East and Southeast Anatolia and later in different regions of Turkey and in some Eastern European countries.

PKK Drug Smuggling and the Kurdish Diaspora

In the words of David Romano "once the PKK matured into a larger, more established movement, it could finance itself via contributions from Kurds in the region and abroad as well as with support from foreign state powers and involvement in the narcotics trade and smuggling". When the PKK reached one of its main political aims by constructing a Kurdish Diaspora composed of PKK sympathizers in Western European countries. It became one of the real bosses in the drug business between the Golden Crescent and Western Europe without any serious rivals.

In a considerable number of European cities, the PKK had thousands of members and huge sympathizer networks which helped it in the drug business. The terrorist organization helped many Kurdish people to immigrate illegally to Western Europe, and all these people were forced to donate significant parts of their incomes to the organization. Apart from these so-called donations, Kurdish immigrants were also forced to help the PKK’s drug business operating in Western European cities. As it had no comparable rival in the East and in the West, the PKK within a short period of time, managed to strengthen its power in the European drug market in terms of production, transportation, distribution and marketing.

Kurdish children including 10-15 years old ones became drug sellers in front of pubs, pavilions, and even around certain schools in many European capitals.

Four Kurds were arrested in Milan (Italy) on a TIR truck carrying 100 kg of hidden heroin in 1989. The driver, Nazim Kelo told Italian investigators that the heroin had come from the PKK, for whom he had worked for years. In 1991, a PKK confessor said that between 1988 and 1990, he carried more than 300 kg heroin to Europe only on his own. According to Interpol, in 1992, the PKK was orchestrating approximately 80 % of the European drug market.

PKK is an active organization not only drug smuggling, but also in processing, transportation, securing transportation, distribution, and marketing. With reference to 1992 Interpol data, the number of Kurdish organizations related with the drug business was 178 and most of them were under the control of the PKK or they at least gave tribute to the PKK. Ikbal Huseyin Rivzi, Interpol’s chief narcotics officer, explained that the PKK was heavily involved in drug trafficking as a means to support its terrorist activities in Turkey. During the same year, the reports of Italian police clearly showed that the PKK set up special teams for international drug business.

The US Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics Matters has published "International Narcotics Control Strategy Report” in 1992, in which it stipulates that the European drug cartel is controlled by PKK members. Haluk Bahcekapali, a senior Turkish narcotics agent, argued that "the PKK members were the brains behind the trafficking between Turkey and Western European countries".

Some of the money acquired from drug trafficking and extortion, goes to the purchase of firearms and other equipment.

According to a report published by the British National Service of Criminal intelligence, in 1993 the PKK acquired about $75 million from drug smuggling in Europe. Later on, in 1994 PKK members were arrested by Turkish authorities while attempting to smuggle 1.5 tons of hashish to Turkey from one of Turkey's neighboring countries. German high rank officials also stated that 75% of the heroin caught in this country that year belonged to the Kurdish origin Turkish citizens.

Moreover, in Germany, 70 % of the total drug sale was made by the PKK. Other sources similarly indicate that in 1994 the PKK controlled 60% to 70% of the illegal European drug market. In 1994 in Germany, 30 of the imprisoned PKK members were affiliated with drug crimes In the same year, the amount of the captured PKK drug was nearly 1.6 tons.

An article in a German newspaper (Kölnische Rundschau), dated February 2, 1995 also reported that a drug trafficking cartel which operates in South America called "Medellin" had close links with PKK drug dealers who work in Europe. In this connection, 25 PKK sympathizers were apprehended in Cologne, with 143 kg of heroin.A 1995 report prepared by the Drug Enforcement Agency of the US Department of Justice also emphasized that the PKK is engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering activities and is well-established in the production of almost all kinds of opium products and their smuggling.

Turkish Interior Minister Nahit Mentese reported in 1993 that security forces had scored major successes against Kurdish rebel drug-smuggling operations. Over the year, he said, the police had seized 1,054 kilograms of heroin, 2,884 kg of morphine base, and 23,679 kg of hashish from PKK traffickers. The Turkish Minister added "This terrorist organization gets financial revenues from smuggling drugs abroad, as it does in Turkey."

Columnist Enis Berberoğlu, who has written several books on the subject similarly, underlines the connection between the PKK and drug smuggling during the early 1990s: "Turkey was deeply involved in drug smuggling in the mid 1990s. There was a very strong mafia at that time and the PKK (the Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers Party) used to take protection money in return for letting them operate in the east".

The Sputnik Operation

During the 1990s drug business has become the most important revenue of the PKK terrorist organization. The 1996 UN Narcotic Audit Committee’s Report indicated the reason why the PKK still stands, as narcotic money. Belgium newspapers in 1996 reported that the police there believe that the PKK was engaged in drug and arms smuggling, extortion and other crimes in Europe.

During the 1990s the PKK established the so-called NGOs and companies in Western European countries, notably in the UK, Germany, France and Belgium, to launder and transfer the smuggling and extortion money.

The 1997 Sputnik Operation (Belgium) showed how the PKK launders narcotic and other illegal money. The British and Belgium police acted simultaneously together on 18 September 1996, and started a large scale operation called 'Sputnik'. The operation targeted the PKK linked organizations and members of the terrorist organization under civilian names in the United Kingdom and Belgium (Like London-based Med-TV, so-called Kurdistan Parliament in exile).

In Germany and Luxembourg the police also made similar operations against the PKK in their countries. The main juridical foundation of all these operations was money laundering. The narcotic and other illegal money was being laundered by the PKK's TV channel and so-called civilian organizations. The operation revealed that the PKK's TV channel, namely the Med-TV had a 350 millions of Belgium Francs bank account in Luxembourg.

The police reported that the money came from drugs, arms and human trafficking. In February 1996, a Canadian citizen who had acted on Med-TV was jailed in Luxembourg. According to the Luxembourg police, he tried to launder a big amount of money for the PKK organizations for the commission.

The terrorist organization in these years laundered money under the name of donations or aids to so-called cultural, children, and women etc. associations in London, Paris, Brussels and other European cities. This money has been collected in certain accounts; later, laundered money has been spent for MED TV (now Roj TV), weapons, explosives, militia training and for other PKK businesses.

Another laundering method was buying-selling jewelry and using some other legal investments.In 1997, the relationship between the terror organization and drug smuggling began to disturb the Western European countries even more, and explained above with Sputnik and some other operations; the terror organization was forced to take more drastic measures to hide its illegal activities. When risks increased in the drug business, the PKK started a propaganda campaign claiming that it was not in any illegal drug business.

The organization claimed later on that these accusations were part of the Turkish Republic’s ‘propaganda game’ against the PKK. According to the PKK propaganda, those people who were caught by the police did not have any relations with the PKK. In this regard, the PKK, thanks to its social and so-called cultural organizations, in 1998 started a great “No to Drug” campaign in many European countries., as expected, with these kind of campaigns, it was not possible for the PKK to clear itself in the eyes of European police and other security forces.

However, it should not be forgotten that the English - French police and judiciary are working within a political system, and public opinion naturally influences their operations against criminals. This may be the point that Turkey cannot intercept fully, but on the other hand the PKK utilizes perfectly.

While Turkey generally perceives all of Europe (even the West in general) as a single body, the terror organization successfully abuses the Western democracies’ weaknesses and the Western pluralist political and legal structures.

PKK-Linked Drug Smuggling in France, Italy and the UK

Similar to the operations in UK, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany several people mostly of Turkish nationality, were arrested on October 29, 1996 in Parisian suburbs. That was the end of 40 millions of francs-fraud, linked with Belgium, concerning about 150 relevant victims, completed by weapons and narcotics trafficking. The French police in this operation seized 6 kg of heroin, which worth 20 millions of francs. According to the French investigators who worked on that case for 18 months, the benefits of all these operations were assigned to the PKK.

Early 1997, the presumed fund-raiser of the PKK in the south of France was arrested by the French police for sending money to Turkey, allegedly proceeding from drug trafficking. François Haut, director of the Department for the Study of the Contemporary Criminal Menace in Paris, argues that the PKK is still responsible for up to 80 percent of narcotics trafficked into Parisian suburbs.A report published in 1998 by the Italian Finance Police, SCICO, determined that the PKK is 'directly involved' in 'international drug-trafficking,' while also earning illicit proceeds from the 'immigrant trade' and the 'systematic levying of 'protection' payments from Turkish businessmen and workers abroad.'

In 1998 the British security service sources estimated that the PKK was responsible for at least 40 percent of the heroin sold in the European Union.

BBC: PKK Controls 80 % of the European Drug Market

After the capture of Abdullah Öcalan, head of the PKK, and with the dramatic decrease of clashes in the Anatolian mountains, the organization began to give more importance to drug business. Between 2004 and 2005, the amount of drug caught only in the Netherlands was more than 400 kg. According to 2005 European data, the PKK is the primary actor of the illegal European drug trade. BBC stated that, 80 % of the European drug market was Turkish origin (it means Kurdish origin), and that the PKK manages it.

The BBC also reports that there are more than 1000 PKK members in British prisons. According to Turkish authorities, between 1984 and 2000, the number of PKK members caught with drugs is around 700. These numbers clearly state that the PKK has worked with hundreds of people in each country on the transition route.

Rand Beers, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, and Francis X. Taylor, Ambassador-At-Large For Counter-terrorism, in their joint testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Technology, Terrorism and Government Information (13 March 2002) named the PKK the most important terrorist organization in Europe which makes drug business and said "The PKK "taxes" ethnic Kurdish drug traffickers and individual cells traffic heroin to support their operations."

German Police: The PKK is Involved in Drug Trafficking

Germany banned the PKK in 1993 after it carried out a campaign of fire-bombings on Turkish and German institutions in Berlin. However, the German intelligence services estimate that the PKK network in Germany has thousands of members. For the PKK, Germany is comparatively more important than any other European country in financing its terrorist activities and Turkey makes pressure on Germany to actively combat terrorism's financial sources.

As a result of these efforts, in recent years, a number of PKK members have been arrested in Germany for securing financing of the terrorist organization. According to German police sources, the PKK is also involved in drug trafficking in Germany. "Police have confirmed that several investigations have revealed a link between the PKK and drug dealers."In 2007 many PKK members who were involved in drug dealing were arrested in European countries, especially in the transit countries for drugs coming from the east.

For instance, on 19 December 2007, three fundraisers for the PKK who were involved in drug dealing were arrested in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. The Romanian public prosecutor declared that the PKK members organized the transportation of 58 kg of heroin, destined for the Netherlands. The suspects - two from Turkey and one from Syria- were all Romanian residents. They belonged to a trafficking ring which extended to Ukraine. As a matter of fact, Romania (with Bulgaria) has always been a vital transit route for PKK drug smuggling from Turkey to Europe. The country has always been important for arms transfers from Western Europe to Turkey. . Marko Hajdinjak claims that Kurdish smugglers along with the Arabs have controlled the heroin trade in the Balkans and they have dominated the Romanian route.

Hajdinjak says "Indications exist that the profits from Kurdish-run heroin trade are used for financing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)".

US Labels PKK Drug Smuggling Kingpin

The PKK, as well as a Turkish national and other foreign organizations and individuals, were put on a US list of suspected drug traffickers in June 2008. The US Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, which became law in December 1999, targets major foreign narcotics traffickers, their organizations and operatives worldwide. The terrorist organization will be denied access to the US financial system and all trade transactions involving US companies and individuals under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act, according to a statement released by the White House. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council said "Now that the PKK has been designated under the kingpin act, the penalties for doing business with them are much higher... We also now have the authority to target and designate other PKK entities and associates for narcotics activity. Before, we were limited to this group's terror activities."President George W. Bush described the group as a "common enemy" during the November Summit with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. US experts and administration officials believe that the PKK has taken advantage of Turkey's strategic location between the poppy fields of Central Asia and the vast market of Europe and has used drug smuggling to finance its activities since as early as the 1980s. According to the American narcotics specialists, the terrorist group not only “taxed" the drug traffickers but also was directly engaged in trafficking.Parallel to these arguments Jane Intelligence Review in 2008 argued that the share of drug money with Diaspora funding increased in the PKK financial sources. "PKK financing has shifted from state support to self-financing through Diaspora funding and drug trafficking".

According to the Jane Intelligence Review, the war in Iraq has further facilitated the narcotic source of income for the terrorist organization as substantial amounts of heroin formerly transiting Iran are now re-routed through Iraq. The journal says "While the PKK's involvement in drug trafficking is clear, its exact extent and nature is not".

Similarly Prof. Dr. Norman Stone confirms in his article in the Spectator that the PKK is in the drug smuggling business: "it kills innocents, it deals in drugs".

The PKK Mafia Network and Narcotic Money

When all these data is considered, it will not be so extreme to say that the PKK has created a symbiotic relation with its existence and drug business. Lieutenant General Ergin Saygun, deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff, recently estimated that 50 to 60 percent of the PKK’s annual revenues are derived from drug trafficking.

As The Spectator, British weekly magazine, puts it "the PKK has financed its war against Turkey by extortion and the sale of heroin" (The Spectator", 28 November-5 December 1998)In the mean time, a new kind of mafia emerged in drug, smuggling, and tribute \ robbery areas. This formation, can be called ‘PKK mafia’, and has developed its own mentality beyond the terrorist organization’s classic mentality.

In the course of time, participations to the network from outside have begun and a network stretched to three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa), has been created. Surprisingly, some organizations defining themselves on the contrary to the PKK have also begun participating in this PKK mafia network.

Thus, the drug money undermining public order and state authority in the country, Turkish or Kurdist ideologies curtailed the real intentions. So to secure processing, transportation, distribution and market drug production; this network has reflected itself differently and has even spread inside the state body. The critics made by European countries in the mid-1990s, concerned the fact that drug bosses had acquaintances in the Turkish cabinets. Although these claims seem to be exaggerated, it is remarkable that organizations reflecting themselves to the public under a different ideology and utilizing state power in some cases have been cooperating with the PKK.

It can be argued that the Deep State problem, extreme nationalisms and terrorism in Turkey have been financed by the drug smuggling money for the years.Children As Drug Sellers in the PKK Narcotic Network
Apart from taxing narcotics traffickers, direct production, refining and transportation, the PKK became a significant seller in Euro drug business in 1990s. In order to escape strict European laws, the terrorist organization has used children and teenagers. Children and teenagers moving drugs for the Kurdish terrorists have been caught throughout Europe on numerous occasions in the 1990s and as recently as the year 2000.

For example in Hamburg, the German police arrested a group of 11 year-old Kurdish children who had been smuggled into Germany from Turkey in order to sell drugs for the PKK.

Conclusion

In brief, illegal drug trade is the most crucial financial source of terror and a major precursor of the collapse of the legal state in Turkey. If Turkey succeeds in ending drug smuggling, in order to end terror, it will reach more effective solutions rather than bombing the Kandil Mountain.

Turkey on the one hand, must eliminate the areas that are exploited by terrorists and extremists, and at the same time it must destroy the financial infrastructure of terrorism and other crimes by curbing drug smuggling. Otherwise, the Turks will continue to live with problems like robbery in the streets of Istanbul, terror in the mountains of southeast Anatolia and political assassinations at most sensitive times. We should also note that Turkey desperately needs the immediate help of European countries in its combat against terrorism. The ‘monster’ is too big for Turkey, and the Turks can not overcome the problem without the EU’s help. At the same time, the drug smuggling mainly targets the youth in Western European countries, and the EU cannot stop the illegal drug problem without a real co-operation with Turkey.

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