Foreign Affairs: Is Turkey becoming a mafia state?

In the early days of the following week, the first trial hearing was held against Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab in Manhattan. Zarrab, who is known for his close ties with Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and claims there has been well-organised schemes for the exchange of oil for gold, a sophisticated way to avoid international sanctions on Iran, perhaps with the help of Turkish government relatives and allies. (American officials arrested Zarrab in March last year while traveling to Miami, Florida).

Later, after the launch of the trial process, however, US prosecutors' claims were rejected by the accused, while on Wednesday Zarrab agreed to testify before judges, claiming he had corrupted the former economy minister to avoid sanctions. All ties, which may implicate Erdogan, have put the Turkish leader in an extremely difficult position, which has accused the United States of plotting to oust his government and his government personally from power. The real guilty man who promoted the investigation, as he insists, is Fetullah Gylenn, leader of the prominent Hizmet movement (or “Gylenist”), who lives in exile in Pennsylvania and whom Erdogan claims to be the orchestra of the July 2016 coup attempt against him.

Zarrab's top profile is just one of many examples of a growing trend in Turkey: the revival of organised crime. Over the past ten years, a dramatic expansion of illegal trade and smuggling has been seen throughout the country. One of the factors of this increase is the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011 and the deterioration of Iraq's internal situation after the Islamic State (or I) took place SIS) in 2014. Persistence sparked a boom of criminal activities and smuggling across Turkey's southern border. For example, the main unit in the fight against narcotics and smuggling, the Anti-Contrada and Organised Crime Department (known and CoM) in 2009 has undertaken about 800 shares against illegal oil trade, but by 2014, the total number of these operations reached about 5,000. In 2014, more than 8 thousand individuals were arrested on heroin smuggling charges, a double increase since 2009, and a fivefold increase since 2001.

The addition of illegal industries in Turkey is also linked to Erdogan and his administration. They have generally failed to show determination or set priorities for meeting these challenges. Government officials have been very silent about the alarming increase in smuggling figures. Ankara has long resisted international calls for closing the border with Syria, despite the large number of foreign fighters passing through Turkish territory. Only after Turkey's intervention in Syria in August 2016 did the Turkish government begin building a 560-mile border wall across the Syrian border. Recent arrests and seizures, including the seizure of about 100 tonnes of smuggled oil in March, were undertaken only after increasing international pressure, and only after continuing reports of various media for alarming smuggling figures and other illegal activities at the border between Turkey and ISIS-controlled territory.

In addition to its negligence, the Turkish government appears directly involved in other criminal activities. The most disgusting signs emerged in December 2013, when Turkish prosecutors arrested Zarrab and the sons of the four most important ministers of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, who were accused of money laundering, smuggling and avoidance of sanctions against bribes. Erdogan, who later became prime minister, was one of the party's main founders in 2001 and had very close ties with the accused ministers. Although the investigations led to the resignation of several AKP ministers, Erdogan publicly attacked KOM officials and other law enforcement officials that they were supporting what he considered a “rrust state organised by the judiciary”. He blamed Gyleni, naming the investigation as an act of revenge by Glenen's supporters in Turkey, while earlier in the autumn, he had issued a flood of charges against his movement.

In January 2014, immediately after being elected to the post of president, Erdogan fired thousands of police officers and KOM officials or transferred them to other positions. A month later, he released Zarrab from prison, and the case was closed. In another disturbing case, in April 2015, the Turkish government lifted restrictions on declaring the amount of money that travelers were allowed to bring to the country, allegedly to encourage foreign investments. The move has raised major concerns and doubts in the ranks of international observers, such as the Financial Action Task Force, which has lobbied Turkey to strengthen its anti-money laundering laws. Meanwhile, in March 2016, the U.S. State Department published a report on the transparency and efficiency of Turkish officers and courts tasked with overseeing the financial sector in the country, and the report went very far by naming Turkey's anti-laundering mechanisms “weak and lacking in means and expertise to fight effectively [finance of terrorism]<1>. A month before the publication of the State Department report, Italian prosecutors launched investigations into Erdogan's eldest son Bilal, who was accused of money laundering. Although the investigations were suspended and the charges against him were fired, Bilal Erdogan's legal problems had similarities and links to criminal procedures initiated against his father's associates in 2013.

The public was rightly angered by these events, but the fury of their anger was brought about by the coup attempt of July 15, 2016, mass cleansing and arrests that followed the coup attempt. Erdogan's immediate and steadfast insistence on the role of Gylinen in the coup attempt led most of Turkey's media, as well as most of the public, to see the allegations of bribery and 2013 corruption links with many reservations. State authorities' claims that the KOM had co-operated in organising the coup attempt led the public to assume that other criminal investigations are a similar attempt by Egyptian officers to undermine the Turkish government. Just based on these claims in 2014, a Turkish judge overturned the preliminary decision for the famous mafia chief, Sedat Peker, whom the right policy soon led to Erdogan's orbit. Later, pro-government dailies began to circulate the pictures of Erdogan embracing Pseker at the wedding of one of the AKP's key faithful and exhibitors. Such images have strongly contributed to the creation of a public image that Turkey de facto is becoming a mafia state.

Instead of combating organised crime, Turkish officials and their allies in the media have tried to show the FETO or “the Terrorist Organisation Fethullahist”, as they call it, their favourite acronym of allegedgylenist conspiracy, as one of the main sources of criminal activities organised in Turkey today. Erdogan has expelled or arrested thousands of KOM employees and other law enforcement bodies. Officials remaining in state service have been repeatedly charged and have been victims of witch hunts for links to gylenists and their alleged allies. According to KOM's own statistics, in 2016 about 78 per cent of those arrested on charges of bribery or corruption have been declared FETO members. Meanwhile, other statistics from last year suggest that investigations into ordinary organised crime have suffered a drastic decline. A possible explanation for this decline could be the root reconstitution of Turkish law enforcement bodies immediately after the attempted coup of July 2016. To meet the ranks of law enforcement and security agencies, Ankara has lowered basic education standards for recruiting police workers.

New police workers have taken office without adequate training or going through a literal trial process, throwing strong doubts about the competence and professionalism of KOM officials and Turkish police. According to a former senior official, Turkey's <x0 law enforcement agencies have been severely traumatised and demoralised as a result of continuing cleansing that has occurred in recent years. Institution memory, experience and many other capacities have vanished”.

The consequences of Turkey's continuing fall into violation of the law take on more tonnes of omens if it is dedicated to organised crime in the recent past. Turkey's geographical position makes it an important hub of smuggling between Europe, Asia and Africa. The continued deterioration of rule of law in the country is likely to further stimulate illegal trafficking towards Europe and the United States, significantly boosting trade and heavy drugs, weapons and illegal financing, as well as immigrants. The deteriorating relations between Brussels and Ankara could mean that co-operation and co-ordination on these important security issues will have serious consequences. Given Erdogan's willingness to threaten Europe with unlimited refugee flows along Turkey's borders, it is most likely that European politicians will have no opportunity to pressure Turkish officials to take organised crime issues more seriously.

While in terms of its relations with the United States of America, Turkey was once a trusted ally in the fight against terrorism and organised crime. But this is probably not the case in the future. In light of outstanding disputes over political elections in Syria, it seems that US-Turkey relations are at the lowest point in recent decades.

As Erdogan's list of allies shrinks, he and his AKP will surely continue to describe any perceived action of US pressure as unwanted and hostile. There can be nothing Washington or Brussels can offer Ankara to overcome the growing divisions between them. Western policymakers would do well to make their plans in line with the new circumstances created. Instead of hoping for possible future co-operation, they can very well create a strategy that isolates and protects the United States and its allies from potential risks posed by an increasingly corrupt Turkish state.

Foreign Affairs