Turkish crime boss Sedat Peker, who has been making shocking allegations about shady relations between the media and state actors, has claimed that the courts were again trying to impose an access ban on his social media accounts.
“There are efforts for a second time to block access to my YouTube, Twitter and Instagram accounts. But the administrators of these platforms are not currently taking such an action. They are resisting like us [let’s see how much they will resist],” said Peker, promising to share “what he knows” with his followers at all costs.
The Freedom of Expression Association announced on Friday that a Turkish court ruled to impose an access ban on Peker’s social media accounts, citing national security. But the court decision has not yet taken effect.
Peker, the head of one of Turkey’s most powerful mafia groups who was once a staunch supporter of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has since early May been setting the country’s political agenda through videos he posts on YouTube, each of which reaches over a million viewers on the first day of their release. The crime boss, who lives in Dubai and is the subject of an outstanding warrant in Turkey, has been making shocking revelations about state-mafia relations and drug trafficking and murders implicating state officials.
Peker’s claims are wide-ranging. He alleges that former Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım’s son is involved in international drug trafficking; that the government smuggled arms to jihadist groups in Syria through SADAT, a paramilitary organization established by a former adviser to Erdoğan, by using Peker’s humanitarian aid trucks as a proxy; that Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and his inner circle are blackmailing people with bogus charges of terrorism links; that former shady police chief and interior minister Mehmet Ağar unlawfully seized the Bodrum Marina, which belonged to Azeri mogul Mübariz Mansimov; that Ağar’s son Tolga, a deputy from Erdoğan’s party, raped and killed a reporter; and much more.
Soylu has so far been Peker’s main target, primarily because he ordered a police raid on the gangster’s house in April when his wife and three children were home alone and because he called Peker “a dirty mafia leader” in a tweet.
In the wake of Peker’s allegations, Erdoğan, after a long silence, stood behind Soylu, saying that “we have always been at the side of our interior minister in his fight against criminal gangs and terrorist organizations, and we will continue to be there.”
Following Erdoğan’s statement, an offended Peker said he would go to the root of his relationship with Erdoğan, whom he refers to as “brother Tayyip.” He has so far not released the video in which he talks about his relationship with Erdoğan.