PKK drug smuggling ring busted in Belgium

A PKK drug smuggling ring in Belgium has been busted in a police raid, according to local media reports on Friday.

Brussels-based Belga news agency said that Belgian police seized 30 kg of cocaine, 12 kg of heroin, a large number of ecstasy pills, 10 firearms, 10 vehicles, and some €800,000 ($941,680) in a raid on a house in Hasselt, Belgium.

Although the agency did not specify when the operation took place, it said the raid was part of an ongoing investigation in an Austrian court.

It said the court had already sentenced four drug smugglers to over 21 years in jail while a fifth suspect was being sought under a European arrest warrant.

Ten more suspects were arrested on similar charges, said the report.

Hasselt regional daily Het Belang van Limburg also confirmed the report, adding that an Austrian court and Belgian police were working together to take down an international drug gang that supplies heroin, cocaine and amphetamines to half of Europe, including Switzerland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria.  

In another operation, nine kilogrammes of heroin and €75,000 were seized in Austria, it added.  

Belgian police captured the leader of the gang thanks to the support and information from the Austrian court.

Profits sent to the PKK
The illicit profits would have gone to Turkey, presumably to the outlawed PKK group, the report said, citing the court.
The court also indicated that with heroin alone, the PKK earned millions of euros annually.
The drugs entered Europe through the Dutch port of Rotterdam and Belgian port of Antwerp, after which they were shipped to a PKK warehouse in Hasselt.
The PKK - listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the US and the EU - has been officially at war with the Turkish state since 1984.
Some 40,000 people have been killed in the clashes mainly concentrated in Turkey's southeast, as well as various attacks elsewhere in the country.
The group resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015 after ending a two-year ceasefire, citing their objection to the state's construction of dams in the country's southeast.
Since then, the group has been responsible for the deaths of more than 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians.