Turkey deals heavy blow to drug trafficking in 2020

Turkey effectively continued its war on drug trafficking in 2020, the country's interior minister said on Sunday.

Sharing details of Turkey's war on drug trade on Twitter, Süleyman Soylu said as a result of 158,674 anti-narcotic operations conducted by security forces, 229,156 suspects were arrested, 23,693 of whom were remanded.

During these operations, 3,689 kilograms (8,132 pounds) of methamphetamine, 838 kilograms (1,847 pounds) of cocaine, over 13.2 tons of heroine, 2,796 kilograms (6,164 pounds) of skunk, 604 kilograms (1,331 pounds) of opium, over 86.8 tons of marijuana and more than 114 million cannabis roots were seized.

As many as 7.5 million ecstasy pills, 4.2 million pills of synthetic drugs and 2.7 million captagon pills were also confiscated.

Compared to the first 11 months of 2019, drug-related fatalities decreased by over 20% to reach 175 in 2020.