This is not what we would wish for the Turks given their growing hostility towards Israel since the outbreak of the war, but perhaps there is an idea here for our traffic police: how to equip ourselves with cars without spending money from the budget.
Ercan Ayık is a well-known Turkish drug trafficking gang leader, who operated mainly in Australia. Recently, he was arrested by the Turkish police, and he was not caught alone. Along with him, 37 of his men were arrested and assets worth $250 million were seized.
Among those assets were sports and luxury cars purchased by the gang with drug money. This week, the new Turkish Interior Minister, Ali Yerlikaya, revealed what the local police did with the cars: with the approval of the Istanbul court, they recruited them into their ranks.
The list includes, among others, a Ferrari 488, Bentley Continental, Porsche Taycan, and Audi RS6, alongside many off-road leisure vehicles from Mercedes and Land Rover. In Israeli terms, there is a fleet here worth more than NIS 20M.
Göreve geldiğimiz ilk günden itibaren bizden hep şu sözü duydunuz: Türkiye’nin Huzuru…İstanbul Emniyet Müdürlüğümüzün organize suç örgütlerine karşı gerçekleştirdiği başarılı operasyonlar sonucu 23 araç ele geçirilmişti.Mahkeme kararınca da bu araçlar emniyetimize verildi.… pic.twitter.com/mzBtgp5EgU
— Ali Yerlikaya (@AliYerlikaya) December 26, 2023
In steadfast countries like those in the Persian Gulf that often equip themselves with such cars, or like the Italian police that sometimes receive donations from Ferrari or Lamborghini for public relations purposes, it is already known that the average police officer's driving skills are not enough to chase criminal drivers in such cars without incidents.
Now the Turkish police will discover that even the costs of their treatments are slightly higher than those of their regular Ford Connect mobiles, and these SUV images are going to cost them quite a bit of money.