Terror group PKK/KCK feeds off illegal drug trade

By Mehmet Tosun

ANKARA (AA) – As it causes thousands of civilian casualties and injuries, the biggest source of income for the PKK/KCK's bloody terrorist attacks is drug production and trafficking.

According to information compiled by Anadolu Agency, the terror group has successfully kept its drug production and trafficking activities underground, both across the globe and within Turkey.

To earn money to carry out its attacks, the PKK/KCK terror group works extensively in all areas of drug trafficking and production.

The terror group initially got income from drug trafficking indirectly by providing security for trafficking and overseeing smuggling, and later got involved in drug trafficking itself.

Confessions by captured so-called leaders of the terror group -- primarily terrorist ringleader Abdullah Ocalan -- and police anti-drug operations over the years revealed the terror group PKK/KCK’s drug activities to the national and international community.

In this context, from 1980 to 2017 Turkish security units carried out a total of 414 drug trafficking operations against the PKK/KCK terror group as part of its determined effort against terrorists. In these operations, 1,325 suspects along with tens of thousands of kilos of hashish, heroin and drugs were seized. Also, nearly 88 million marijuana plants were seized by security units.

Security units’ drug trafficking operations revealed that the PKK/KCK personally coordinates drug planting, production, transportation, and trade activities. It also showed that the terror group takes bribes and commissions from illegal drug producers and traffickers under the name of “taxes”.

The PKK/KCK also distributes drugs across Europe and is actively selling drugs in the streets of Europe, the operations showed. The terror group provides protection to groups that are producing drugs and also give them sites to do their business. Turkish security units’ operations against the terrorists further revealed that the terror group has an active role in planting illegal marijuana in eastern and southeastern Turkey.

The terrorist PKK/KCK conducts its drug trafficking via its special units within the group itself and seizes illegal drugs belonging to anyone who deals in them without its knowledge.

The terror group also forces locals to plant marijuana, as in the past it produced drugs in laboratories established in the camp region of Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Currently the PKK/KCK is producing drugs in camps located in northern Iraq and villages bordering Turkey. The terror group sells heroin derived from Afghan opium especially to Europe.

The terror group uses Turkey as a transit crossing point to Europe, and it calls this route the Balkan Route.

The UN office on drugs and crime believes that drug trafficking from Central Asia, Afghanistan and other countries into Europe nets some $5 billion every year.

European intelligence analysts believe that half of this income is going to the PKK/KCK.