Corruption claims by exiled Turkish mafia boss puts Erdogan government under pressure

Videos from an exiled Turkish mafia boss are putting Ankara under pressure, with his latest video making serious allegations about state corruption.

Sedat Peker, who lives in Dubai, has been making headlines and shaking up social media with his claims about prominent political figures in Turkey.

His videos aim to reveal his deep connections to the government and also seek revenge against those who discredited him in favor of rival mafia leader Alaattin Cakici, who was released from prison last year.

Peker’s videos have become so famous that IMDb has listed all the “episodes” as a TV mini-series under the topics of biography, crime and reality TV.

His sixth YouTube video was watched by millions, with the platform verifying his channel through the blue check mark.

In his seventh video, which was released on Sunday, Peker claimed that Mehmet Agar, the country’s former interior minister and police chief, was involved in the assassination of investigative journalist Ugur Mumcu in a car bomb attack in 1993.

“At the time Mumcu was killed, the first person who went to the crime scene was Agar,” Peker said.

Mumcu was known for his in-depth stories about corruption in the government and the alleged ties of Turkey’s intelligence agency and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party. Agar said at the time: “If we take out just one brick, the whole wall would collapse.”

Peker, who had close ties with the government until recently, also accused Turkish ministers and their family members of being involved in international drug trafficking.

He changed the hotel he was living in because, he said, an official team had arrived in the UAE to find him.

“They earned a lot of money by using me. Now I’m aware of everything. It is a shame. No one will use me anymore for their own benefits,” Peker said.

Another of his bombshell claims was that Erkan Yildirim, the son of Turkey’s former prime minister, paid frequent visits to Venezuela to make the South American country a new drug route for Turkey.

Last year, Colombia announced that it seized 4.9 tons of cocaine in a single operation before they were it headed for Turkey. According to Peker, this operation pushed Turks to change the drug route and find alternatives by taking advantage of lucrative passages through Venezuela.

“Erkan Yildirim went to Venezuela in January and stayed there for four days. Then he went there again in February and stayed again for four days,” Peker said. “They have turned to Venezuela. It is easy to smuggle it from Colombia to there because the Drug Enforcement Agency has no controls there. Syria’s Latakia post is also not put under the US control.”

He said that, in the future, there would also be drug shipments from the Dominican Republic because dry cargo vessels carrying cocaine from Venezuela had to stop there under the new shipment route.

He has also threatened Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, who has been critical of the crime lord. “I will belittle you so much that you will be fitting in a matchbox,” Peker said. “I will take a walk with you after I put a dog chain on your neck.”

Soylu has rejected Peker’s allegations.

A whiteboard seen behind Peker featuring words like Iran, the southern province of Mersin, Turkey’s Sabiha Gokcen airport, and Syria attracted the attention of the audience.

However, as Peker made no reference to them, it is believed his next release will focus on Turkey’s ties with Iran in terms of oil, guns and money laundering.

“He put a question mark at the end of these words, it means that he wanted to give a message to certain people to get guarantees from them,” tweeted investigative journalist Mustafa Hos.

A journalist at Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency was fired after he put critical questions to Industry Minister Mustafa Varank and Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli during a press conference about Peker’s latest claims.

The journalist asked if the government was planning to respond to the allegations, suggesting that Soylu’s name had become “associated with grave moral faults.”