Turkish mafia (Turkish: Türk mafyası) is the general term for criminal organizations based in Turkey and/or composed of current or former Turkish citizens. Crime groups with origins in Turkey are active throughout Western Europe (where a strong Turkish immigrant community exists) and less so in the Middle East. Turkish criminal groups participate in a wide range of criminal activities, internationally the most important being drug trafficking, especially heroin. In the trafficking of heroin they cooperate with Bulgarian mafia groups who transport the heroin further to countries such as Italy. Recently however, Turkish mafia groups have also stepped up in the cocaine trafficking world by directly participating in the massive cocaine smuggling pipeline that runs transnationally from South America to Europe. They allegedly have a lucrative partnership with the Venezuelan drug-trafficking organization known as the Cartel of the Suns who ships them cocaine along with criminal elements from Ecuador. Turkish organized crime has pushed into less traditional cocaine markets as well such as into Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the wealthy petro-states of the Persian Gulf. Cosa Nostra and the Turkish mafia are also known to be very close. Criminal activities such as the trafficking of other types of drugs, illegal gambling, human trafficking, prostitution or extortion are committed in Turkey itself as well as European countries with a sizeable Turkish community such as Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Albania, and the United Kingdom.
Most Turkish crime syndicates have their origin in two regions: the Trabzon province on the Black Sea coast of northeastern Turkey and the East and Southeast Anatolia in the south of the country. The biggest origin is on the coast of the Black Sea, located near Trabzon.
