Drug trade expected to boom as furloughed criminals prepare for post-Covid world: ‘They’re just getting started’

He thought the Covid-19 pandemic would bring a temporary halt to the business. The on-off Turkish drug dealer, small-time trafficker and ex-con, hunkered down at home to ride out the storm.

But then the government of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, like administrations across the world, freed thousands of prisoners to slow the spread of coronavirus inside jails. Suddenly, he was flooded with calls from his old prison pals. All of them were eager to get back into the game.

“They’re reaching out,” 34-year-old Cerkes said, speaking on the condition his full name not be published. “They’re asking, ‘Can you help us out? Can you make a connection?’ I know two or three crews buying cocaine. These guys just got out of prison. And they’re just getting started.”

With the price of narcotics rising, tens of thousands of hardened criminals released from prison across the world, and an economic meltdown reducing legitimate paths to earning money, criminal justice experts warn of an impending surge in drug trafficking as well as crime-related violence.

Observers in Istanbul and other Turkish cities have already noted the emergence from the shadows of the streets drug dealers, who were invisible only months ago.

“The problem that always comes with releasing people is that their skill set is the same as when they went in, absent of any rehabilitation or training efforts inside,” says Jay Albanese, co-founder of Criminologists Without Borders, an association that tackles international crime.

Countries that have released prisoners include Colombia, a global centre of cocaine production, as well as India, the US, Indonesia and Morocco. They have cited the need to reduce prison crowding and prevent outbreaks of the pandemic within prison walls. But in Turkey and elsewhere, authorities have opted to release criminals rather than those in jail on politically motivated charges.

Turkish lawmakers of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) hustled through a controversial law last month that allowed for the release of 90,000 drug dealers, traffickers and other criminals, but not journalists, political leaders and activists held in jail on nebulous “terrorism” or national security charges.

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For now the released criminals are mostly keeping a low profile. Murder and burglary rates are either stable or down in much of the world in a large part due to Covid-19 restrictions, according to statistics compiled by the United Nations Office on Crimes and Drugs.

But experts and criminals themselves are warning that a surge may be impending. According to an investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, players in the international drug trade are already adapting to the pandemic by stashing drugs ahead of an easing of the lockdown and coming up with innovative distribution systems.

“What is clear is that cocaine continues to flow from South America to Europe and North America,” said the report. “Closed trafficking routes have been replaced with new ones, and street deals have been substituted with door-to-door deliveries.”

Drug traffickers hope to make up for a loss of sales volume by benefiting from an increase in drug prices of between 30 and 100 per cent.

“The biggest challenge for law enforcement right now and the biggest incentive to get into drug dealing is that prices are really high,” said a Turkish criminologist who maintains ties with both drug dealers and law enforcement. “The police and the bureaucracy are overwhelmed because of coronavirus.”

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Crime and drug cartels will also benefit from a fresh injection of potential recruits spewed out into the streets by prison furloughs. Outside of northern Europe, very little job training and rehabilitation takes place in prisons worldwide.

“It’s very difficult to have high expectations that there will be a big change,” says Mr Albanese. “Everybody is looking to make a living. To get any job – whether plumber, carpenter or drug trafficker – you need connections.”

Those connections are often culled inside prison.

Cerkes, now living now in north Africa after lengthy jail stints in Turkey and trouble with the law in the Balkans, described Turkish prisons as networking havens for criminals.

“They got out of prison and they have their prison social web and that’s all they know,” he said. “Few of them have any other skills.”

There have been several reports in Turkish media about furloughed prisoners rearrested on charges of domestic violence.

Some recalled the infamous 2002 amnesty of prisoners in Turkey that caused an explosion of crime.

“People stole wallets. They stole motorbikes,” said Veysel Ok, an Istanbul attorney. “There were small mafia groups popping up all over Istanbul.”

Little data is available about the criminal aftermath of past pandemics. But the 1920s, which followed the devastation of the 1918 flu pandemic, are regarded as a golden age for organised crime across the world. Last month, Interpol organised a virtual meeting of law enforcement officials to discuss ways to prevent “mafia organisations” from exploiting the coronavirus pandemic to further infiltrate key sectors of the economy.

“Anytime there’s a pandemic you have scarcity,” said Mr Albanese. ‘What scarcity does is raise the value of what’s available. The prices go up, and what that does is not just enable organised crime, but draw in a whole host of regular law-abiding members of the community willing to exploit others.”

Cerkes says he’s still involved in the narcotics trade, hooked into a network that stretches from the Middle East through the Balkans and North Africa, but hopes to earn enough money to leave the business.

“Soon to be done with all this and take off,” he said.

Why stay in the business despite its risks? “The system didn’t offer me anything better,” he said. “That’s why.”

Burhan Yuksekkas contributed to this report.