Spotlight 35: Turkey, Bulgaria and mob-style killings in the Netherlands
a miscellanea of articles for last Spotlight edition before Summer break
Hi and welcome back to the 34th issue of Spotlight, a fortnightly collection of news, articles, and events about organised crime and corruption curated by Firm UK.
Every two weeks a collective of experts, academics, and volunteers will select a few relevant articles and/or events that will help you to understand our society under the hood.
This issue comes with few interesting articles about Turkey, a country we suspect we’re going to talk about in the near future with regards organised crime: from its growing role within the cocaine traffic to the concerns raised by Bulgaria about its border with Turkey.
We hope you enjoy Spotlight. And if you like it, please share it with your network and invite them to subscribe.
Thank you!
The Mafia Built A Port. Now It's a Global Cocaine Hub.
A new report by Italy’s Antidrug unit revealed 97 percent of the almost 14 tons of cocaine coming into Italy via the Mediterranean sea last year was discovered in Gioia Tauro, a port in the southwest region of Calabria – an area dominated by the ‘ndrangheta, the world’s most influential mafia organisation.
This article explores how the ‘ndrangheta clans funded part of the building of the port, companies controlled by them were involved in its construction and its operation.
A total of 13.3 tons of cocaine was intercepted at the port – situated on the Tyrrhenian Sea on Italy’s “toe” – in 2021, almost six times the 2.3 tons seized there in 2011. Gioia Tauro’s importance as a destination for cocaine from South America now means that Calabria accounts for two thirds of all the cocaine seized by land, air and sea in Italy.
Professor of criminology at the University of Essex Anna Sergi, FIRM UK’s associates said Gioia Tauro was a unique port in terms of its organised crime set up.
“The money that bought the drugs in the first place comes from the same territory where the drugs arrive and are initially distributed. The cocaine investors are not always the distributors, but in Gioia Tauro they are”.
Turkish Bananas: The Cocaine Road to Russia and the Persian Gulf
In May 2021, a convicted Turkish gangster living in Dubai released several videos accusing government party members of cocaine trafficking and homicide.
A month later, Turkish authorities made their largest cocaine seizure ever: 1.3 tons. A week later, they seized another 463 kilograms.
This article sheds light on Turkey's historical role as a transit country for heroin, opioid precursors, and marijuana, as well as its emerging role in cocaine trafficking.
Turkey: Cocaine Hub Between Europe and the Middle East
Turkish and foreign law enforcement have seized record quantities of cocaine heading from South America to Turkey, revealing the expanding role of the country’s traffickers in shipping drugs to European and Middle Eastern markets.
The seizures, according to experts consulted by InSight Crime, are just the tip of the criminal iceberg, as Turkish organised crime — long king of the European heroin trade — increasingly turns to cocaine to offset falling opiate prices.
In this article, InSight Crime examines three reasons why Turkey is the latest transcontinental cocaine corridor.
A view to a kill
In this emotional text&picture roll, the ABC tells the story of the NCA Bombing, an event of March 1994 when a package exploded in the building where the National Crime Authority was set up in Adelaide, South Australia.
On the 30th of June 2022, 28 years later, finally a man is convicted for the bombing, which killed one detective, Geoffrey Bowen and severely injured lawyer Peter Wallis. In these 28.
Years rumours of the involvement of the ‘ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, with the murder and the now convicted murderer, Domenic Perre, have surfaced, but so far they have not been proved.
Mob-style killings shock Netherlands into fighting descent into ‘narco state’
A series of events in the Netherlands have inspired a crackdown setting €500m a year against a level of organised crime that politicians fear is increasingly “undermining” public order.
The Dutch government announced a new international collaboration last Monday against criminals who ship cocaine from South America via the ports of Rotterdam and nearby Antwerp in Belgium. Politicians also want to scrutinise “facilitator” businesses, expand crown witness schemes, delve into opaque financial structures and offer vulnerable young people in 16 neighbourhoods better options than crime.
The article presents a series of other local and national initiatives in the country that are connected to this renewed fight against organised crime. From international collaboration to curb cocaine trade at the port of Rotterdam, to youth programs and interventions in Utrecht.
While Dutch criminal gangs have been dubbed the “Mocro [Moroccan] Maffia” and ethnic minorities are overrepresented as crime suspects, Statistics Netherlands researchers say racial background is less important than age, education and socioeconomics.
Some believe that to tackle criminal recruitment the Dutch need to address racial discrimination in the benefits system and jobs market, plus a grammar school system in which there is an unequal representation of children from lower socioeconomic groups and those with a non-western background.
Is the EU ready to counter the global cocaine trade?
According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s Global Organized Crime Index, Europe is the continent with the lowest overall criminality levels after Oceania – with a score of 4.48 out of 10 (10 being the highest score for criminality).
According to the Index findings, the most pervasive criminal markets at a continent-wide level in Europe are human trafficking, human smuggling, arms trafficking, and flora and fauna crimes. However, there is considerable disparity between regions in Europe: zooming in on the 27 countries of the EU, the landscape changes completely.
Bulgaria sounds alarm over EU’s mafia-run border
The outgoing Bulgarian government alerts against endemic border corruption in their country. Over the past years, food was permitted into the EU from Bulgaria that, under normal circumstances, would be rejected or destroyed for regulatory reasons.
A criminal group, according to officials, had a monopoly on the border checkpoint, taking bribes and extorting companies — with no interference from the authorities.
Outgoing members of government contend that corruption on the border was “possible” because “high-level politics” provided an “umbrella” protecting the criminal activity. This article sums up the allegations and frames them within the context of European politics.
Books, podcasts & more
[Podcast]: Ukraine and Arms Trafficking
The Index Podcast: A deep dive into the Global Organized Crime Index with leading experts looking at some of the biggest organized crime threats around the world.