Iranian methamphetamine and Turkey: an emerging transnational threat

Abstract

Traditionally, Turkish security officials were engaged with state-level threats from Iran. Their primary concerns were export of revolutionary ideology, sponsorship of terrorism, proliferation of nuclear weapons and energy blackmail. In the recent years, however, the nature of the threat has changed and diversified. Non-state actors, mainly transnational crime syndicates, have begun to pose a significant threat to both Turkey and Iran. Iranian drug networks (IDNs) have become the primary actors in heroin and methamphetamine trafficking through Turkey. The IDN threat transcends the jurisdictions of the two states and casts a debilitating impact on the Asia-Pacific countries. Despite a plethora of enacted initiatives, high profits sustain large-scale trans-regional methamphetamine trafficking. Retail prices in the Asia-Pacific markets approach hundred-fold profits over the production costs of methamphetamine in Iran. In this context, Turkish law-enforcement agencies report increasing amounts of methamphetamine seizures since 2009. The upsurge in seizure quantities is coupled with an escalation of cases and arrests. This paper investigates dimensions of the methamphetamine threat in Turkey, profiles of the actors, shipment routes, and modus operandi of the trafficking syndicates. It provides insight into a non-traditional non-state threat coming out of Iran. The inferences are based on an analysis of 183 methamphetamine case files and 81 provincial questionnaires of the Department of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime (KOM).