10 of the Most Famous Turkish Gangsters

10 of The Most Famous Turkish Gangsters

Rowdy Ann by Christie Film Company from Wikimedia Commons

The phrase Turkish mafia (Turkish: Türk mafyas) refers to criminal groups established in Turkey and/or made up of (former) Turkish citizens. Crime gangs with Turkish origins are active in Western Europe (where there is a large Turkish immigrant community) but not so much in the Middle East.

Turkish criminal gangs engage in a wide range of illicit operations, the most prominent of which is international drug trafficking, particularly heroin. They collaborate with Bulgarian mafia groups in heroin trafficking, transporting the heroin to nations like Italy.

With this in mind, here are 10 of the most famous Turkish Gangsters.

1. Alaettin Çakıcı

Alaettin Çakıcı was a former member of the ultra-nationalist group Grey Wolves, and his close ties with the country’s intelligence service are well known. Because of the protection, he obtained from several high-profile politicians, law enforcement has been unable to touch him for many years.

It is known that during his childhood, Akc joined ultra-nationalist groups in the Işli neighbourhood and that he joined the MIT (National Intelligence Organisation) in May 1987 as the security department manager. akc is claimed to be responsible for 41 political assassinations, and his name was on Marxist-Leninist Dev-assassination Sol’s list in the 1990s. He was finally wanted by the government at the end of the 1990s for extortion, illicit property deals, and the killings of several people, including his ex-wife Uur Klç. He was apprehended in France and held in Turkey.

2. Sedat Peker

Me, Gangster film still by Magazine Builders from Wikimedia Commons

T Sedat Peker gained fame by assassinating drug smuggler Abdullah Topçu in 1997. He fled to Romania after this incident but was apprehended in Turkey in 1998 and imprisoned for less than nine months. Peker was apprehended in 2005 as part of Operation Butterfly and sentenced to 14 years and five months in jail for managing a criminal organization, robbery, forgery, and two charges of false imprisonment. He was released from prison in 2014 and has been living in Istanbul since then.

In 2016, Sedat Peker said in a well-attended speech that the academics who signed the petition for peace in Southern Turkey would be massacred; “We will let your bloodstream and take a shower in your blood.”

3. Kürşat Yılmaz

Kürşat Ylmaz is a Turkish mobster with close ties to the ultra-nationalist ‘Grey Wolves.’ He began his criminal career by producing fake lottery tickets, but it was the murder of Turkish drug kingpin Osman Ayanolu that made him renowned in Turkey. Kürşat Ylmaz instructed his most trusted man, Yavuz Kaşkc, to kill Osman Ayanolu, and Osman Ayanolu was shot to death in Istanbul’s famed akr Gazino, where he was with his family for the new year’s eve celebrations, in the night that turned from 1991 to 1992.

His identity was implicated in the murder of Kayhan Güveliolu the following year, and he was sentenced to 19 years in prison, but he managed to elude security authorities while being transported from prison to the hospital in 1994. He was arrested two more times, but with the help of unseen hands, he was able to flee from prison in 1997 and 1998. In July 1998, he was detained in Bulgaria and deported to Turkey in April 1999. He was also found guilty of orchestrating the murder of the former Mayor of Kuşadas Lütfi Suyolcu in 1995.

4. Hasan Heybetli

Photo by What Is Picture Perfect from Unsplash

Hasan Heybetli is the son of ‘Arap Hüso’ (Hüseyin Heybetli), a legendary criminal in Küçükpazar in the 1960s and 1970s. Arap Hüso died in 1979, leaving a large legacy for his son, Hasan, who is largely regarded as Turkey’s last traditional gangster. Hasan Heybetli was just 14 years old when he ordered his two 12-year-old men to backstab a 14-year-old youngster in the manner of his father. But that was only the start of a long, terrible career.

Hasan Heybetli was a frequent fixture in the black-market mafia by the 1980s; he was guilty of everything from gambling and weapons trading to bribes and narcotics trafficking to robbery and murder. However, Hasan Heybetli did not become renowned as a result of his criminal record. 

He was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2011 for his involvement in the murder of businessman Fatih Edremit in the Işli neighbourhood.

5. Olfu Osman

Hasan, Osman, and Ismail, three brothers from Of, one of Trabzon’s most famous neighborhoods, were gangster leaders known for their brutal power, violence, and money. Oflu Osman is the most well-known of them for a reason: he has heavily invested in the building and tourist industries.

Meanwhile, he established other gambling establishments in Istanbul, and he became known as the ‘father of dads,’ who developed a renowned mafia model, transforming small criminal activities into a smoothly functioning operation that produced substantial profits. Visitors to his funeral in Istanbul’s Fatih Mosque included politicians such as President Erdoan, singers such as Brahim Tatlses, Adnan enses, Metin entürk, Mustafa Topalolu, and actors and actresses such as Oya Aydoan.

6. Nuri Ergin

Nuri Ergin was born in one of Istanbul’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, Karagümrük, which gives its name to the gang he created with his younger brother Vedat Ergin; Karagümrük Gang, one of the most formidable criminal organizations in Istanbul’s history.

Nuri Ergin was born in one of Istanbul’s most dangerous neighbourhoods, Karagümrük, which gives its name to the gang he created with his younger brother Vedat Ergin; Karagümrük Gang, one of the most formidable criminal organizations in Istanbul’s history. After torturing and killing thousands of people and bombing many of his opponents’ homes, Nuri Ergin captured the attention of the media with the murder of Mustafa Duyar, a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front (DHKP), who was accused of murdering zdemir Sabanc, a member of one of Turkey’s richest families.

Most recently, Nuri Ergin was sentenced to 39 years imprisonment, and his legacy is now being carried on by his son, Anıl Ergin, who also was arrested in Edirne in 2015.

7. Dündar Kılıç

Turkish Gangs by Sander Sammy from Unsplash

Dündar Klç, known as the Marxist ‘father,’ was born in 1935 in a hamlet outside of Trabzon. His family, like many ‘Laz’ families in the region, relocated to Ankara, the region’s major city, where Klç first entered the criminal world, holding a pistol in his palm at the age of ten. He was previously recognized as one of Ankara’s greatest criminals in the 1960s, but what gave him prominence was the murder of Kurd Cemali, a crime for which he long denied culpability, but which led him to flee Ankara for Istanbul.

By the request of Semra Özal, the wife of Turgut Özal, who ruled Turkey in the 1980s as a prime minister, and as a President between 1989 and 1993, Dündar Kılıç became the referee for the issue between Selim Edes and Engin Civan – known as Civangate Scandal – which led him pit against Alaattin Çakıcı. Çakıcı himself was a mafia leader and husband of his daughter. In 1995, his daughter was shot dead by the men of Alaattin Çakıcı, but Kılıç never attempted to take revenge. It is rumoured that it was, in fact, an honour killing jointly ordered by Kılıç and Çakıcı. Dündar Kılıç died in Istanbul in 1999.

8. Idris Özbir

Following the military takeover of September 12, 1980, he was charged with heroin trafficking and sentenced to ten years in jail. Kurd Idris was arrested on drug trafficking charges after his brother-in-law Eftim Veriopolos attempted to sell heroin to authorities in the city of Elaz.

In the realm of organized crime in Istanbul, it is unusual for a high-profile leader to remain out of prison for an extended period of time, but Kurd dris, one of the most renowned crooks of all time, served only eight months. Dris died in his home in Saryer, Istanbul, in 2012.

9. Solak Ligor

Photo by Mark Schaefer on Unsplash

Solak Ligor established his dominion from Unkapan to Eyüp, and his outstanding use of his left hand earned him the epithet “left-handed” (solak). He was the most frightening in his region on the Golden Horn for at least four years, but a love affair with a prostitute is supposed to be the cause of his demise.

It is reported that his sweetheart persuaded Ligor to join a former gang, and in 1921, Ligor was apprehended by foreign spies (similar to James Bonds) in Istanbul while delivering counterfeit British money to the market. Since then, no one has heard anything about him.

10. Hiristo Anastadiyadis

Hiristo Anastadiyadis is one of the most intriguing criminals in Istanbul history since his biography has been transformed into three Turkish films. Hiristo began his criminal career by robbing individuals in trams and at his mother’s whorehouse on Peremeci Street in Beyolu. Hiristo then formed his own gang with several other notable bullies, and he soon began shaking down the regions of Beyolu, notably Tatavla (Kurtuluş), Dolapdere, and Galata.

Hiristo, on the other hand, fled to Greece with his sweetheart, Eftimya, who was supposed to be responsible for Hiristo’s murder. After a while, Eftimya returned to Istanbul, which enraged Hiristo, and he followed her there. While Hiristo was hiding at a residence in Istanbul one night, Eftimya’s father went to the police and notified them of his whereabouts.

During the gun duel, Hiristo was murdered by a police officer called Muharrem Alkor, the father of prominent modern Turkish actress Selda Alkor (1943-present) — Hiristo was accused of 21 killings, 13 of which were committed by police officers.

It’s safe to say that all the gangster movies we have watched have never been too far off with all the killings, the lies and treacherous childhoods they often have, the pattern was and is always the same with gangsters.