"Turkey is turning into Mexico"

As a man was killed on Sunday in Istanbul inside a car intercepted and targeted by assailants in two cars, a former chief of the organized crime bureau of the Istanbul Police Department said that Turkey is "turning into Mexico" with new incidents of organized crime occurring more and more frequently.

Turkish state news agency AA said that an individual identified as C.A. was killed in the "armed conflict" in Istanbul, and one identified as D.K. was injured in the clash, as those in the targeted car responded to the attack by fire.

The assailants were members of a gang known as "the Daltons" led by a Baris Boyun under custody in Italy, and that they were released after being arrested in a recent operation against the gang, government media Hurriyet noted.

Speaking to daily Cumhuriyet, former police chief Adil Serdar Sacan stressed that "the mafia has climbed up to an upper level" in Turkey recently.

Criticizing the use of the word "conflict" by the media in incidents of organized crime, Sacan said:

"These incidents are not just armed conflicts. 40 people have died in mafia attacks in the last 30 days. It is not the police or the gendarmerie who will solve this problem. They have simply thrown the burden on the law enforcement and vanished. Where are the political figures, the parliament, the president? Why isn't this problem addressed properly, and why do they fail to bring special forces to action?"

Noting that Turkey has been turning into Mexico, he added:

"Recently a police vehicle taking a mafia member to the courtroom was targeted. The mafia dares target the police to kill the mafia member inside the vehicle. This kind of incident did not happen before. This is a grave situation."

About Sacan

Sacan founded the organized crime bureau in 1998, and served till he was dismissed in 2003 over accusations of torturing detainees in custody. He was arrested in 2009 in the context of the "Ergenekon case," a short time after he and his son survived a traffic accident. In 2013, he was sentenced to a prison term over affiliation with the "Ergenekon organization," allegedly a clandestine group of ultra nationalists embedded within the state.

Sacan had headed operations against organized crime networks, including the biggest three, the networks of Alaattin Cakici, Sedat Sahin and Sedat Peker.