Turkey investigates migrant smuggling ring via local councils

15,000 euros in exchange for official travel documents to attend a training course in Germany that does not exist. This is how the illegal emigration network in which several Turkish municipalities are allegedly involved, the existence of which is being investigated by the police and denounced by the opposition, operates.

The Interior Ministry announced on Monday that six municipalities are already under investigation, a list that has since been joined by several other cities.

"The Ministry of the Interior will investigate the facts and if it finds evidence of misconduct or crime it will pass them on to the courts. There are various ways of sending people abroad and there may be those who take advantage of the correct procedures," acknowledged Ömer Çelik, spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP party.

Several Turkish media claim that at least 1,000 people have illegally migrated to Germany since at least 2018, using passports issued by municipalities under the guise of participating in non-existent training programmes.

"There is a whole network, an organisation, that illegally takes people from Turkey to Germany with the help of Turkish municipalities; between 6,000 and 15,000 euros are paid," Veli Agbaba, vice-president of social democrat CHP, the main opposition party, assures Efe by phone.

Migrants pay smugglers to arrange for municipalities to include them in these fictitious training programmes. With this official backing, the government issues applicants with a service passport, exempt from visa requirements for travel to Schengen countries.

"It is a VIP form of migrant smuggling, with a state guarantee. There is no risk of drowning in the Aegean. You pay between 6,000 and 15,000 euros, you go to Germany, you are welcomed because it is supposed to be an official visit, and you just don't come back," says Agbaba. 

According to Agbaba, a former AKP mayor is the ringleader of the network together with an official in Germany who is in charge of setting up the fictitious training activities. Agbaba believes that some municipalities receive compensation or gifts for participating in the scheme, but that it is also possible that there are municipalities that are unaware of the illegal activity.

The first known case was that of 45 residents of Yesilyurt, a city of 300,000 inhabitants in the southeast of the country, who travelled to Germany in 2020 for an environmental training workshop, only two of whom returned to Turkey.

As a result of this case, the Interior removed four civil servants from their posts and suspended the issuing of service passports to anyone who was not a civil servant.

Agbaba details that the smugglers collect the migrants' passports when they arrive in Germany, in order to return them to the Turkish government delegation and make it look as if the travellers have returned.

One migrant, identified as H.B., explained to the daily Habertürk that he undertook the journey because he was unemployed, and that although he was initially asked for 10,000, he ended up paying 6,000, with the organisation taking care of all the logistics.

Sebahattin Kaya, mayor of Akçakiraz, a small town of 6,500 inhabitants, admitted to the daily Sözcü to having given permission in 2019 for a training trip to Germany to 48 people, only three of whom returned.

"People here don't have jobs. We told ourselves that they will be able to work there. Here they are just a burden on the country. Now they will send euros, gold, dollars, help their parents? It seemed reasonable to me. If something has more benefit than harm, it is legitimate", he justified.

The councillor explained that, for their collaboration in the plot, the traffickers gave the municipality a second-hand truck, valued at around 1,000 euros.

The AKP has denied that all the municipalities under investigation are in its power, claiming that there are also those governed by the CHP or the right-wing nationalist IYI.

The CHP on Wednesday called for a parliamentary investigation into the issue, which was rejected with the votes of the AKP and its allies.