Four Turkish mafia leaders arrested in the Netherlands during international mega operation
The tentacles of the Turkish mafia reach all over Europe. Today four 'leaders of Turkish cells' were arrested.

Crime
Panorama Editorial
Apr 15, 2025 | 5:00 PM
Mafia
In total, four arrests were made on Tuesday, April 15. Two in The Hague, one in Arnhem and one in Rotterdam. At the same time, no fewer than 232 suspects were arrested in other places in Europe during an international operation against four different Turkish drug cartels. This was reported by the AD .

These criminal organizations are said to have members and leaders in many different countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Spain. However, most arrests - 225 - were made in Turkey today. Hundreds of properties and 127 cars were also seized. The total value: more than 300 million euros.

The major international operation, which was carried out by the Turkish law enforcement agencies, Europol and several other European countries, is seen as a major blow in the fight against the Turkish mafia.

The Netherlands
The four people who were arrested in the Netherlands are seen as leaders within the Dutch cells of the criminal syndicates. A kind of advanced pawns, who are in charge of the Dutch branches of the Turkish mafia here. From here, the suspects would arrange criminal business such as drug trafficking for their bosses in Turkey.

Andy Kraag, the Dutch head of Serious and Organised Crime at Europol, states in the AD that Turkish criminals were mainly involved in the heroin trade in the past, but have switched to coke and other drugs in recent years. After all, that yields more money these days.

Cracked messages
Law enforcement agencies in Turkey targeted the hundreds of criminals after they obtained large amounts of data, including chat messages sent via encrypted services such as SKY ECC and Anom.

In the Netherlands, too, various criminal telephone services were cracked in the past. This yielded a ridiculously large amount of information, after which hundreds of arrests were made. Hundreds of kilos of drugs were also intercepted and several liquidations were prevented because the police were able to read along with the criminals.

https://panorama.nl/artikel/639756/...and-tijdens-internationale-mega-operatie