Arrest of Turkish dealer highlights scale of heroin trade here

The arrest of a Turkish international heroin trafficker in Dublin is a significant indicator of the scale of the heroin trade in this country.

He is suspected of organising a deal, involving 7kgs of the drug, with Ireland's biggest heroin gang.

He was caught by Garda's Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau along with an Indian national, a convicted major dealer.

Both individuals are known to the British National Crime Agency, which worked with the DOCB in this operation.

Add in the arrest of a Dubliner, who is well known in celebrity circles and the Irish media, and the operation piques interest on many levels.

It is thought to be one of the first times such an international-level Turkish dealer has been apprehended here. Gardaí said he had been active in Britain until recently.

Garda sources said his arrest was “a massive success” noting that this individual “would have access to massive quantities of product”.

Amid media concentration on cannabis herb, cocaine and ecstasy, the heroin trade does not tend to get as much publicity. But the market has always been there, apart from a shock to the trade in late 2010 and 2011. Since then, trafficking into Europe increased significantly, according to the European drugs agency.

In a detailed report in 2016, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction said that there had been an “unprecedented increase” in the size of individual shipments sent along heroin routes into Europe, with consignments of 100kgs or more and occasional ones in the tonnes.

There were record-breaking hauls in many European states in 2013, with large seizures continuing into 2015.

Seizures in Ireland also reached a peak in 2013, with 61kgs intercepted. Since then, total quantities seized fell to a low of 18kgs in 2017, but they rose sharply in 2018, to around 46kgs.

Some 5.4 tonnes of heroin was seized in Europe in 2017, similar to previous years. But seizures in Turkey jumped, from 5.6 tonnes in 2016 to 17.4 tonnes in 2017 – three times the combined total for the EU.

The Emcdda said that parallel to this has been a 'rapid' rise in heroin purity since 2011, while heroin prices have fallen slightly.

The bulk of heroin into Europe comes from Afghanistan, with the route through Turkey described by the Emcdda as the “first and most significant” route, there since the 1980s at least.

The Emcdda said police intelligence suggested that Turkish organised crime groups (OCGs) were the “main importers and facilitators of distribution of heroin in key regions in Europe” and maintained control over various parts of the supply chain.

Heroin is moved from Turkey overland, by sea and by air, with a traditional route by lorry, buses and, especially, cars.

Emcdda said that criminal organisations from several European countries, such as the Netherlands, Britain and Ireland have also used South Africa as a shipment point, with Turkish traffickers becoming active there.

The agency said that within Europe, Turkish OCGs work with Albanian and Pakistani OCGs as well as local crime networks, including in the Netherlands and Belgium. From those countries, heroin is moved to Britain and Ireland.

The Ballyfermot gang is considered the biggest heroin trafficking outfit in Ireland and has been operating for more than a decade. While it has connections with the Kinahan crime cartel, sources said it is so big that it largely acts independently. Its contact with Turkish traffickers illustrates this.

The Criminal Assets Bureau has targeted this gang, led by two brothers, up to six times in the last two years, most recently last November when it took five high-end cars from it.