Heroin, organized crime and the making of modern Turkey
William Armstrong - williamjohnarmstron[at]gmail.com.tr
‘Heroin, Organized Crime, and the Making of Modern Turkey’ by Ryan Gingeras (Oxford University Press, 290 pages, £65)
On the morning of Nov. 4, 1996, Turkey woke up to news of a car crash near the small town of Susurluk, just south of Istanbul. The accident on a quiet country road seemed ordinary enough, but it was the four passengers inside the new model Mercedes - three dead and one seriously injured – who made national headlines. They included a former beauty pageant winner, an Istanbul police chief, a Kurdish member of parliament, and an ultra-nationalist contract killer who was on Interpol’s red list. The scandal lifted the lid on the murky alliance between the Turkish military, members of the ruling party, security officials, and organized crime, and commanded the news agenda for weeks.
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