Urfi Çetinkaya, a notorious drug dealer known as “Turkish Escobar,” has died in a prison in the western province of İzmir where he was serving a 24-year sentence on drug trafficking charges, Turkish media outlets reported.
Çetinkaya, 66, who is likened to notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, was arrested in April 2023 in İstanbul while he was being sought internationally on an INTERPOL Red Notice.
Turkish authorities issued no statement about the cause of Çetinkaya’s death, but he was known to suffer from health problems. He had been wheelchair-bound since 1988 after suffering a gunshot to his legs in a police operation.
Journalist Timur Soykan said on X on Friday that Çetinkaya’s wife, Hediye Levent, filed criminal complaints against the prison officials, claiming her husband was not given a respirator despite the fact that he had been requesting one for a week. Levent suspects that Çetinkaya might have been murdered, Soykan said.
Turkish police conducted an operation in February targeting members of Çetinkaya’s criminal organization across nine provinces including İstanbul, Ankara and İzmir as a result of which 43 suspects were taken into custody. Twenty-three of the suspects were subsequently arrested, while 20 of them were released under judicial supervision.
The suspects were accused of the international trafficking of drugs using their own ships, commercial containers and fishing boats, with 13 tons confiscated in Germany, Bulgaria, Spain, Mauritania, Portugal and Greece, as well as an additional 24 tons seized in Turkey.
Among the suspects, one was sought on an INTERPOL Red Notice.
Çetinkaya had been arrested many times, first in 1989 due to charges related to obtaining and selling drugs.
After being put behind bars several other times, he was released from prison for reasons of health in 2012.
In February Turkish authorities seized assets valued at TL20 billion ($586 million) belonging to the criminal organization led by Çetinkaya.