PKK in heart of drug trafficking- U.S. official

The outlawed PKK was involved in drug trafficking, but also other international organized crime, Michael Braun, the assistant administrator and chief of operations of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said.

Organizations like PKK, which were involved in drug trafficking and obtaining great deal of income from that trafficking besides being involved in terrorism, could be defined as "hybrid", Braun said on Friday in a special policy forum at the Washington Institute on "drug trafficking and Middle Eastern terrorist groups: a growing nexus?".

He said the United States was working with Turkey and other countries to end the activities of the terrorist organization PKK, adding the best thing to fight against terrorist organizations like PKK and al-Qaida was to demolish the walls and cooperate.

Braun, appointed as the DEA's chief of operations in February 2005, leads the drug-enforcement operations of the agency's 227 domestic and 87 foreign offices.

DEA is a United States Department of Justice law enforcement agency tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the U.S.

Turkey, provided with intelligence on PKK movements in Iraq by the U.S., has stepped up military action against the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist group by much of the international community including the U.S. and the EU, since December, carrying out several air strikes and a week-long ground incursion into northern Iraq in February, where more than 2,000 PKK separatists take refuge.

http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/english/domestic/9476478.asp?scr=1

PKK revenues reach 500 mln euros

Gen. Ergin Saygun, the deputy chief of the Turkish General Staff, said yesterday the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has a yearly income of 400-500 million euros obtained from drug dealing, human trafficking, smuggling and donations.

Speaking on the second day of an international conference on terrorism organized by the Turkish military at the Centre of Excellence -- Defense against Terrorism (COE-DAT) in Ankara on March 10 and 11, Saygun said: “It is obvious that the PKK is a terrorist organization and, with its mafia-like structure, it is also an organized criminal organization. This fact has been proven by several international reports. The terrorists’ organization obtains its income mainly from drug dealing, in addition to arms smuggling, money laundering, racketeering and other illegal means.”

He said the PKK obtains 200-250 million euros from drug dealing, 100-150 million from its various smuggling activities and 15-20 million from donations.

Saygun indicated that the PKK provides arms not only to its members but also to the terrorists of other organizations. He said this shows how the PKK has become an international criminal organization and that it underlines the need to fight the PKK’s crimes internationally. “The mentality that supports the terrorist organization should not forget that this organization controls 80 percent of the drug dealing in Europe and poisons the European public.”

At the conference Saygun said reports from the UN and other esteemed international organizations indicate that the PKK kidnaps children -- including girls -- in Europe to give them training in arms and ideology.

He complained that even though Turkey has been sensitive to make a distinction among groups and not to label everybody terrorists, some Europeans do not show the same understanding. “Some in Europe wrongly identify everybody of Kurdish origin with the PKK,” he said.

Speaking about the harm caused by terrorist organizations in general, Saygun said: “Terrorist organizations claim they represent ethnic groups or great belief groups. So they carry out their activities in the name of the ideologies of Islam, people’s independence, minority rights, Jihad, democratic rights and freedoms, thereby seeking legitimacy for their activities. We should not fall into this trap.”


12.03.2008
News
Today’s Zaman with wires

PKK Criminal Networks and Fronts in Europe

PKK Enclaves in Iraq

By Abdulkadir Onay

On February 13, Frank Urbancic, deputy counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department, told CNN-Turk, "The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] is like the mafia all over Europe." He added that in addition to its terrorist presence in Europe, the PKK has an "octopus-like structure carrying out criminal activity, including drug and people smuggling" to raise funds, as well as "fronts that provide cover to the organization's criminal and terror activities."



The United States and Turkey have recently begun to cooperate with each other against the PKK presence in northern Iraq, but the organization's relatively unnoticed European criminal networks and fronts remain a lifeline that, if unchecked, will allow it to remain well funded and supplied indefinitely. For their fight against the PKK to be successful, Turkey, the United States, and the European Union must tackle the group's European activities.


Criminal Fundraising in Europe

The State Department's April 2007 Country Reports on Terrorism stated that the PKK finances its operations through fundraising and criminal activity in Europe. Similarly, a recent NATO Terrorist Threat Intelligence Unit (TTIU) report found that the PKK is involved in illegal economic operations such as smuggling, tax evasion, and other forms of organized crime, including drug and counterfeit money trafficking as well as illegal foreign currency exchanges. The report also stated that PKK members apply coercion in collecting funds.

According to figures presented at the NATO Reinforced Economic Committee meeting in November 2007, the illicit narcotics industry is the PKK's most profitable criminal activity. The committee's subsequent report found that the PKK is involved in all phases of the narcotics trade, from raw production in Pakistan and distillation in Iraq to street sales and "taxation" of non-PKK-produced drugs in Europe. The report also showed human trafficking as the PKK's second most profitable illicit activity.

Europol has made a similar case about the PKK's criminal activities, offering specific evidence in its April 2007 Terrorism Situation and Trend Report: "Two PKK members were arrested in France in 2006 for money laundering aimed at financing terrorism. At the end of 2005, three members of the PKK were arrested in Belgium and another one in Germany suspected of financing the PKK. In Belgium, the authorities seized receipt booklets indicating that the arrested suspects were collecting 'tax' from their fellow countrymen. The rise of fundraising activities by the PKK in the EU is related to the escalation of the terrorist campaign of Kurdish terrorists in Turkey."

Fronts and Legal Loopholes

In addition to its criminal network, the PKK also uses fronts and legal loopholes to raise funds in Europe. The TTIU report stated that the group raises a total of $50 to $100 million per year. Although the bulk of this amount comes from criminal operations in Europe, approximately $12 to $15 million is raised through legitimate or semi-legitimate commercial activities and donations. According to Turkish authorities, the PKK has a vast network of 400 affiliated organizations in Europe -- about half of which are in Germany -- engaged in these commercial activities. The network includes affiliate or sympathizer organizations such as the Confederation of Kurdish Associations in Europe (KON-KURD, headquartered in Brussels) and the International Kurdish Businessmen Union (KAR-SAZ, in Rotterdam).

The PKK also has a vast European propaganda and fundraising network that includes two news agencies, four television stations, thirteen radio stations, ten newspapers, nineteen periodicals, and three publishing houses. These media organizations are scattered across Europe and range from Roj TV in Denmark to the Firat News Agency in the Netherlands.

Purchasing Weapons

Revenues from the PKK's criminal activities and fronts have long funded the group's weapons purchases in Europe. Between 1984 and 2006, Turkey confiscated a total of 40,045 PKK weapons. The origin of many of the weapons could not be detected due to intentional destruction of identifying marks by producers, smugglers, or the users. Nevertheless, more than 16,000 of them have so far been traced. Some originated in European countries, including Italy, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, and Russia. Moreover, of the 8,015 mines captured by Turkey, 4,857 came from Italy and 2,268 from Russia and the ex-Soviet republics. Such large amounts of weapons, often stored in military depots, normally would not disappear without alerting the authorities.

European Cooperation: Slow but Increasing

The PKK has enjoyed safe conduct in some European countries for quite some time. Today, these nations are beginning to understand the global effects of terrorism and the need for international cooperation, and are accordingly taking steps to ban or restrict PKK activities. For instance, as reported by the Turkish daily Sabah, the British Foreign Office acknowledged in January 2008 that the PKK and its affiliate organizations had been active in Britain and other European countries since 2001. As a result, Britain announced that "foreign terrorist organizations would not be allowed to exploit the territories of the United Kingdom to fundraise any more."

Most European states have also officially recognized the PKK as a terrorist organization (though some, such as Norway, have not yet done so). Accordingly, they are taking some concrete steps against the group. For example, in January 2008, a local Berlin court found a Turkish citizen guilty of leading an underground PKK cell in Bavaria since 1994 and sentenced him to nearly three years in prison.

U.S. Role in Facilitating European Cooperation

According to the European Council's 2002 Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism, member states are obligated to take necessary measures to ensure that any involvement with a terrorist group -- whether it be directing, funding, supplying, or participating -- is punishable by law. Unfortunately, European countries have been slow in implementing this legislation.

In order to be successful, the U.S.-Turkish strategy against the PKK presence in northern Iraq should include strong U.S.-Turkish-European counterterrorism tools to shut down the group's European criminal networks and fronts. In this regard, the United States should bring Turkey and Europe together by facilitating joint work among American, Turkish, and European law enforcement agencies.

Source: Washington Institute, February 21, 2008

Drug Smuggling and Terrorism: The PKK Case

Source: Sedat LACINER

* By Assoc. prof. Dr. Sedat Laciner

Some claims that Turkey is one of the transit countries of the drug trafficking, not a consumer; so the fight against narcotic should not be involved with in the priority struggels of Turkey. Even, within some conversations, it is possible to hear 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 dollar have entered to the country.

However, these are not the whole part of the schema. To clarify Turkey just as a “transit country” is not sufficient. In the mean time, Turkey has become one of the crucial narcotic centers of the world. Every drug bags, pass through Istanbul and other Turkish cities to the Western Europe this turns back as a terror, crime organization, violence on the street and loss of government power in Turkey. Besides, this process continues for decades; drug-violence-degeneration triangle insidiously prejudice Turkey internally. At that point, drug trucks, passes from Turkey, should be stopped so as to re-construct order in Turkey, re-gain government authority by the government itself.

Terrorist organizations are based on two main columns: The first one is ideological/political base. Terrorist organizations exploit mistakes of states, areas where there is no state authority; the more these exploitation facilities continue, the more these organizations grow fast. The second important column terrorist organizations based is the economic infrastructure. Money is requisited for weapons, explosive materials, daily needs of terrorists etc. Contrary to general perception, money mostly has not come “directly” from other countries. When other countries want to assist, they prefer utilizing from “natural ways”; randomly cash money is given directly to the terrorists by foreign countries.

There are two fundamental principles to maintain economic infrastructure of terror. 1) tribute \ blackmailing \ donation, 2) robbery, 3) narcotic money, 4) other illegal revenue. Among these, since it is relatively easier way and more sustainable, mostly, narcotic money catches attention. If it is considered that world’s drug market is around 400-500 billion dollars, this amount will not only sustain terrorist organizations but also countries.

The money, circulated in the drug market, is almost equal to the USA’s defense expenditure in a year and it is approximately over Turkish gross national product.

In Europe, one of the most important regions of the huge market, the PKK, time to time, has controlled 80 % of the market; so it is not difficult to comprehend how the PKK can stand for more than two decades.

When the PKK constituted as a terrorist organization, it did not take it so long to discover the drug smuggling money. At the beginning of 1980’s, it started to act in both producing and transportation sectors of illegal drug business. In 1982, the PKK begun to produce hemp and opium poppy around the 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 transition. Drugs were sent to ports of Greek Cyprus, Greece and Italy; and from this forwarding, the terrorist organization sustained significant amount of revenue for the years.

It is unfortunate that Syria, Greek Cyprus and Greece ignored (or supported) the PKK drug business in order to support this terrorist organization against Turkey. In the beginning of the 1980’s, another considerable role of the PKK was in the line that comes from Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran, crosses Turkey and reach to Europe. As it is known these three countries were called “golden crescent” for drug smuggling. Behind the ‘Golden Crescent’ Laos – Thailand - Birmania countries are ‘Golden Triangle’ for drug producing and smuggling.

In other words, most crucial producer countries are located in the east of Turkey, and Turkey is one of the most crucial routes for the European drug market. It did not take too long for the PKK militants to notice how a ‘lucky position’ they had to control drug trafficking between the East and the West. Terrorists realized the huge wealth, and firstly begun business by allowing transition and sustaining “security services” for ordinary smugglers.

During the 1980s it was not difficult for the PKK to secure international drug transportation in the region because it was organized almost in every district and villages of eastern Turkey. When its organizations advanced in Istanbul, other Western big cities and Western European countries, drug dispatching and distribution has become easier for the PKK. Especially, over Afghanistan-Iran-Turkey-Eastern Europe-Southern Europe-West Europe line, tons of morphine, heroin, liquid hashish and other drug materials were transferred under the PKK control.

The PKK has not only played a significant role in the East-West route drug transportation but also in the West-East transportation of chemical goods for processing of raw drug materials in the East. At the end of 1980s, it was realized that the real money was in the processing business. When raw drug materials were processed, its price increases geometrically. At that point the PKK, firstly in the East and Southeast Anatolia, later in different regions of Turkey and in some East European countries, constructed processing drug laboratories.

When the PKK reached its one of the political aims by composing a Kurdish diaspora close to itself in the Western European countries, it became a real boss in the drug business between Golden Crescent and Western Europe without any serious rival. In most of the cities in Europe, the PKK had thousands of members and huge sympathizer network that assist it in drug business. The terrorist organization helped many Kurdish people to immigrate illegally to Western Europe, and all these people were forced to pay significant part of their income in their new life. Apart from these so-called donations, Kurdish immigrants were forced to help the PKK’s drug businesses in Western European cities. Since there was no second group organized as the PKK did in the East and in the West, within a short time, the PKK strengthened its power in European drug market in terms of production, transportation, distribution and marketing.

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

In 1991, a PKK confessor said that between 1988 and 1990, he carried more than 300 kg heroin to Europe by his own. According to Interpol, in 1992, the PKK was orchestrating 80 % of the European drug market. This relationship was in the fields of processing, transportation, securing transportation, distribution, and marketing. With reference to 1992 Interpol data, the number of Kurdish organizations related with drug business was 178; and most of them were under the PKK control or they gave tribute to the PKK.

Ikbal Huseyin Rivzi, Interpol’s chief narcotics officer, explained that the PKK was heavily evolved in drug trafficking as a means to support terrorism in Turkey. At the same year, the reports of the Italian police clearly showed that the PKK set up special teams for international drug business. German high rank officials also stated that the 75 % of heroin caught in this country in 1994 was belonging to Kurdish origin Turks.

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

By this way, drug business has become most important revenue of the PKK terrorist organization.

The 1996 UN Narcotic Audit Committee’s Report indicated the reason how the PKK still stands, as narcotic money. 1997 Sputnik Operation (Belgium) showed how the PKK launders narcotic money. The terrorist organization in these years laundered money under the name of donation or aid to so-called cultural, children, 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 is jewelry buying-selling and some other legal investments. In 1997, relationship between the terror organization and drug smuggling begun to disturb more the Western European countries, and with some operations, terror organization was forced to take more measures to hide its illegal activities. When risks increased in drug business, the PKK started a propaganda campaign claiming that it was not in any illegal drug business. The organization further claimed 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 police had not any relationship with the PKK. In this regard, the PKK, thanks to its social and so-called cultural organizations, started a great “No to Drug” campaign in many European countries in 1998. With these kind of campaigns, as expected it was not possible for the PKK to clear itself in the eyes of European police and other security forces. However, it shouldn’t be forgotten that English or French police and judiciary are working within political system, and public opinion naturally influences their works against the criminals. May be this is the point that Turkey cannot intercept fully, but the PKK utilizes, perfectly.

While Turkey generally perceives all 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. After capture of Abdullah Ocalan, head of the PKK, and with the dramatic decrease of clashes in the Anatolian mountains, the organization begun to give more importance to drug business than before. Between 2004 and 2005, the amount of drug just caught in the Netherlands was more than 400 kg. With reference to 2005 European data, the PKK is the primary actor of the illegal European drug trade. BBC stated that, 80 % of European drug market was Turkish origin (it means Kurdish origin); and the PKK manages it. The BBC also reports that the number of the PKK members in British prisons is more than 1000. According to Turkish authorities, the number of PKK members caught with drug is around 700 between 1984 and 2000.

These numbers clearly stated that the PKK has worked with hundreds of people in each country on the transition route. When all these data is considered, it won’t be so extreme to say that the PKK has developed by narcotic money.

In the mean time, a new kind of mafia emerged in drug, smuggling, and tribute \ robbery areas. This formation, can be called as ‘PKK mafia’, has developed its own mentality beyond terrorist organization’s classic mentality. In course of time, participations begun to this network from outside; and a network, stretched to three continents (Europe, Asia and Africa), was created. Surprisingly, some organizations, defined themselves on the contrary to the PKK, have also begun to participate to this PKK mafia network. Thus Turkist or Kurdist ideologies curtailed the real intentions and the drug money undermined public order and state authority in the country. So as to secure drug production, processing, transportation, distribution and marketing; this network has reflected itself differently and spreaded even inside the state body.

The criticism made by European countries in the mid-1990s, was about the fact that drug bosses had friends in the Turkish cabinets. Although these claims seem to be more exaggerated, it is so remarkable that organizations that reflect themselves to public under different ideology and utilize from state power in some cases, has 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.

In brief, illegal drug trade is the most crucial financial source of terror and collapse of legal state in Turkey. In order to end terror, if Turkey succeeds in ending drug smuggling it will get more effective solutions than bombing 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 financial infrastructure of terror and other crimes by cutting drug smuggling. Otherwise, the Turks will continue to live with the problems like robbery in streets of Istanbul, terror in mountains of southeast Anatolia and political assassinations in most sensitive times.

We should also note that Turkey desperately needs immediate help of the European countries in its combat against terrorism. The ‘monster’ so big for Turkey, and the Turks cannot overcome the problem without the EU. At the same time, the drug smuggling mainly targets the youth of the Western European countries, and the EU cannot stop the illegal drug problem without a real co-operation with Turkey.

slaciner@gmail.com

February 2008


Journal of Turkish Weekly
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=52769