Teams from the narcotics branch of the police directorate, acting under the coordination of the Mersin Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, carried out operations in the city centre of Mersin province between 7 and 13 November 2026.[1][2] Police said the anti-trafficking work resulted in procedures in 19 separate incidents across the provincial centre.[1] Seventeen of the suspects caught during those operations were remanded in custody on charges of manufacturing and trading narcotic or stimulant substances.[1]
Searches during the operations seized 115 grams of esrar-skunk, the herbal cannabis preparation that Turkish police and media refer to as skunk.[1] Officers also seized 3 roots of hint keneviri, cannabis plants, as the cannabis-plant component of the same seizures.[1] The same seizures also produced 544 synthetic pharmaceutical pills, 108 grams of bonzai, 103 ecstasy pills, 43 grams of cocaine, 3 grams of heroin and 7 grams of a substance described as bonzai precursor A-M, none of which is counted as cannabis here.[1] Teams also confiscated one precision scale and 60,695 Turkish lira that police assessed as proceeds from drug trafficking.[1]
The sweep was presented as a crackdown on drug trafficking in Mersin in which cannabis formed only a small part of a larger multi-drug seizure.[1]
