UK & Europe's Violent Heroin Trade A Cross-Border War Among Turkish Criminal Gangs

[Social Media]

 

A series of violent and public shootings across Europe has exposed a growing and deadly conflict within the Turkish underworld, one that seems to be spreading its tentacles far beyond the borders of Turkey. An Observer investigation has revealed a disturbing pattern of escalating violence, suggesting a broader Europe-wide battle between rival drug gangs with roots in Turkey. This wave of violence has already claimed several lives and has left a nine-year-old girl in London’s Hackney district hospitalized after being caught in the crossfire of what appears to be a targeted gang attack.

 

 

The chilling events that have unfolded over the past few months began in Barcelona, where a seemingly ordinary spring day turned deadly. On a busy Saturday afternoon, diners filled the popular restaurants of the Diagonal Mar neighborhood. Among them were four men who had just sat down for lunch at a restaurant on Llull Street. One of them received a phone call and stepped outside, unaware that it would be his last. As he walked 80 meters along the road, the sound of five gunshots shattered the hum of traffic, and four bullets struck him in the head, killing him instantly.

 

Just three weeks later, on May 29, another shooting occurred, this time in Hackney’s Kingsland High Street in northeast London. At 9:20 p.m., a motorcycle pulled up outside the Evin Cafe, where three men were sitting. The rider opened fire, wounding all three men. Tragically, one of the bullets also struck a nine-year-old girl who was waiting for ice cream with her family. She remains in the hospital, her life forever changed by the violence that erupted around her.

 

 

The violence didn’t stop there. Six weeks later, in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, yet another shooting took place. This time, the target was a middle-aged man sitting on the terrace of a crowded cafe. CCTV footage captured the chilling moment a figure in a motorcycle helmet approached the man and fired seven shots into his head and back. The brazenness of these attacks is striking, and they all appear to be connected, according to European law enforcement officials.

 

Pan-European police investigators believe that these shootings are all linked to a violent schism within the Turkish underworld, specifically between rival factions involved in the heroin trade. The two men who were killed in Barcelona and Chisinau were reportedly high-ranking members of some of Europe’s most feared drug gangs. Simon Harding, director of the UK’s National Centre for Gangs Research and an adviser to the Home Office, stated that the shootings in Spain, the UK, and Moldova were “clearly linked.”

 

In London, detectives are investigating what appears to be a festering feud between two of the city’s longstanding drug syndicates, centered around the botched Hackney shooting. Their focus is on a small area of northeast London, where a decades-old rivalry between two Turkish and Kurdish gangs has erupted into violence once more. The Hackney-based Bombacilar and the Tottenham Turks have been locked in a brutal battle for control of Britain’s heroin trade, with each side retaliating against the other in a spiral of violence.

 

However, the recent bloodshed may signal more than just the continuation of a local turf war. Experts and police sources involved in an investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and the Observer suggest that the violence marks a new and dangerous chapter in the Turkish heroin trade. They warn that a new era of gangland violence is unfolding across Europe, characterized by audacious killings in public places.

 

Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, has confirmed that it is supporting investigations into the recent shootings, which it says are part of a broader trend of escalating violence among criminal groups spilling into public places. Claire Georges, Europol’s deputy spokesperson, noted that there is currently intense competition among criminal groups for control of markets and geographical territories. “Before, the violence was more limited to transit points or transport hubs. Now we’re seeing it in the streets, and this is why law enforcement is taking it very seriously,” she said.

 

The challenge for law enforcement agencies across Europe is to anticipate where and when the next assassination will occur. Even the highest ranks of the Hackney Bombacilar and the Tottenham Turks might not know whether the killing is over or if it is just beginning. The recent wave of violence may be driven by a shortage of heroin, as Afghanistan’s Helmand province, once the world’s largest producer of opium, has seen its production plummet by 99% following a Taliban ban on poppy cultivation in April 2022. This sudden shortage of raw material has had profound repercussions for rival gangs, who are now fighting over what little heroin remains.

 

Ian Broughton, a former detective with London’s Metropolitan Police and an expert on UK drug gangs, believes that the shortage of heroin is fueling the violence. “If we have a shortage of heroin, they will likely be fighting for control of the heroin that remains,” he said. “It’s a perfect scenario for the violence to escalate. That is exactly what we are seeing.” Simon Harding added that the situation is akin to what might happen during a blockade of the Suez Canal, with organized crime syndicates facing a squeeze on their supply chains. “Organized crime is just big business,” he said.

 

The Turkish gangs at the center of this conflict have long dominated the heroin trade in Europe, according to a Spanish police investigator who has spent two decades combating heroin trafficking. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the investigator described the current situation as a “war between clans” and confirmed that Turkish gangs are the “masters of heroin in Europe.” In May, Europol announced that an Italian-led investigation had resulted in the arrest of 17 Turkish nationals involved in murders across Europe, though few details were provided.

 

The violence has not been limited to Europe. Last year, six members of an Istanbul-based Turkish gang were found dead in Greece, reportedly in revenge for the killing of a rival gang boss in Paris. Mahmut Cengiz, a Turkish associate professor with the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center and an expert on the Turkish underworld, predicts that the body count will continue to rise. “Given their operational capacity, dominance in crime sectors, and extensive global networks, I anticipate more assassinations as these groups compete for larger shares of the lucrative drug-trafficking market,” he said.

 

Cengiz also confirmed that Turkish gangs have expanded their operations beyond heroin, diversifying into cocaine trafficking. “Recently, significant amounts of cocaine have been imported into Turkey from Latin America, facilitated by collaborations between Turkish criminal groups in Europe and within Turkey itself,” he said.

 

 

The man killed in the Barcelona shooting on May 4 was Ilmettin Aytekin, a Turkish citizen also known as Tekin Kartal. Spanish police believe Kartal was a major Turkish mafia boss, though no record of any convictions could be found. A Spanish police source described him as “a big player” and suggested that his murder may have been the result of a settling of scores between gangs or a falling out with criminal associates.

 

One intriguing detail about Kartal’s murder is that he was reportedly dining with a notorious figure from the Turkish mafia, Abdullah Baybasin, at the time of the shooting. Baybasin, a 64-year-old Turkish citizen who uses a wheelchair after being shot by a rival in the 1980s, is regarded as the founder of the Hackney Bombacilar, alongside his brothers. One of those brothers, Huseyin, known as “Europe’s Pablo Escobar,” is currently serving a life sentence in the Netherlands for drug smuggling.

 

Baybasin was convicted in a British court in 2006 for conspiracy to supply heroin, with the Hackney outfit then said to be responsible for 90% of the heroin in the UK. However, he was acquitted of the drugs charge in 2010 and returned to Turkey, only to be arrested again and sentenced to 40 years in prison over a drug shipment. He was released in 2017 after the Turkish Supreme Court overturned his convictions.

 

It remains unclear what relationship Kartal had with the Baybasin clan, but CCTV footage from another Barcelona restaurant shows that he dined with Baybasin the night before his death. In a video shared across various TikTok accounts, Abdullah Baybasin has denied any involvement in Kartal’s death or the subsequent London shooting. Huseyin Baybasin, in a website apparently updated by others, stated that the family found out about Kartal’s death days later but that he had never heard of him.

 

Kartal’s murder has sparked a significant response on social media in Turkey, with many commenters praising him for helping people. However, his death is likely to have deadly implications. The three men targeted in the Hackney drive-by shooting have all since been released from the hospital, and all are believed to have ties to Baybasin’s Bombacilar, though police have not confirmed this.

 

An obvious line of inquiry for the police is that the shootings were carried out or ordered by the Tottenham Turks, who have been involved in more than 35 major incidents, including three murders and 20 shootings, in their rivalry with the Bombacilar. Cengiz confirmed that tensions between the two gangs are rising, with the Tottenham Turks increasingly muscling in on the heroin market. “Recently conflicts have arisen between these groups due to the Tottenham Turks’ increasing involvement in heroin trafficking,” he said.

 

The target of the third shooting, which took place outside a cafe in Moldova, was Izzet Eren, a senior leader of the Tottenham Turks. Moldovan police have described his murder as a settling of accounts between groups. Denis Rotaru, a Turkish organized crime prosecutor, revealed that multiple lines of inquiry are being pursued, including “conflicts between rival criminal groups.”

 

However, there is another possibility: that Eren’s murder was an attempt to prevent him from testifying in a UK court. He had been the subject of an extradition request from the UK over drug-trafficking allegations and was arrested by Scotland Yard in Moldova two years ago after an international manhunt tracked him to Ukraine. “He came with the wave of refugees from Ukraine who were fleeing the war,” said Lilian Carp, president of the national security committee in Moldova’s parliament.

 

Although extradition proceedings were underway, Eren was apparently released and is believed to have continued orchestrating his gang’s UK operations while on the run. Despite a series of interlinking European police investigations, none of the hitmen responsible for the recent shootings has been caught. Eren’s killer, according to Moldovan politicians, fled the country on the day of the shooting, crossing into Romania by minibus. “It was clear it was a contract killing and that the killer deliberately chose to shoot him in public at a cafe, not at his home,” said a Moldovan police source.

 

Kartal’s murder has also led to no arrests, and no suspect has been publicly identified. Numerous appeals to Turkish and Kurdish communities in London have yielded no breakthrough. Harding, who advises the Home Office and the UK’s National Crime Agency, is not surprised at the apparent lack of progress. “We’re talking about high-level people that keep business well hidden – unless you are in their inner circle,” he said.

 

However, there has been some progress in the Hackney shooting investigation. On Saturday, the Metropolitan Police announced that a man had been charged in connection with the attack. Javon Reily, 32, was arrested on Friday following a vehicle stop in Chelsea Embankment. Det Chief Supt James Conway described the charges as “a significant development in what has been a painstaking and meticulous investigation.” He added, “Our thoughts remain with our young victim and her family as they continue to confront the devastating effects of gun crime.”

 

Credit: The Guardian  2024-08-12

 

 

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[thaibeachlovers]

Created in the first place by allowing an alien culture to immigrate en mass. The "rivers of blood" speech by Enoch comes to mind.

 

That ghostly laughter you can hear is Enoch laughing from the grave.

Edited August 12 by thaibeachlovers

[Chomper Higgot]

10 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Created in the first place by allowing an alien culture to immigrate en mass. The "rivers of blood" speech by Enoch comes to mind.

 

That ghostly laughter you can hear is Enoch laughing from the grave.

No that’s me laughing at you reaching for a racist to make your point.

[CashMoon]

Hackney Bombers is a UK-based drug gang linked to the PKK. There are dozens of PKK-affiliated gangs in Europe. Almost 80% of asylum seekers coming from the Middle East to Europe and the US are brought by PKK-affiliated human trafficking gangs.  Europe supports the PKK to divide and weaken its ally Turkey.  As a thank you, the PKK brings refugees and heroin to Europe.  Who would sign such a <deleted>ty deal?