Elazığ police detained six suspects identified only by the initials H.A., B.A., D.K., M.A., M.K. and Y.D. during a road interception at the entrance to the city.[1] After processing at the police directorate, all six were brought before the judicial authorities and remanded in custody.[1] They were remanded on a charge of trafficking in narcotic substances and sent to prison.[2]
Officers stopped three vehicles whose plates had been identified, one minibus and two cars.[1] Police said the drug-loaded minibus was travelling with the two cars acting as escorts, and they mounted a simultaneous operation against all three vehicles.[2] Searches found 140 kilograms of kubar esrar, a Turkish term for herbal cannabis, packed in sacks, with the load reported as being inside the minibus.[1]
The operation was carried out by teams of the Elazığ Provincial Police Directorate’s Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime Branch, including its narcotics bureau, as part of work to prevent drug trafficking.[2] Police said they had received intelligence that narcotics would be shipped in three vehicles from the Diyarbakır direction toward Elazığ and onward to western provinces.[1]
