Turkey’s interior ministry said on 28 October 2026 that gendarmerie narcotics teams, with public prosecutors, had run simultaneous operations against drug manufacture and sale and against illegal cannabis planting in 32 provinces.[1][2] The provinces named run from Afyonkarahisar, Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir to Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Şırnak and Van.[1][2] The ministry said 1,953 teams and 9,765 personnel took part, with the gendarmerie’s analysis and tracking units.[1][2]

The people caught were said to have sold drugs through social media and messaging apps, grown illegal cannabis and skunk, and run the trade in an organised way.[1][2] Officers destroyed 119,772 cannabis and skunk plants.[1][2] They also reported 560 kg of drugs and 435,553 pills, without saying how much of that was cannabis.[1][2] Of 423 suspects, criminal judges of peace remanded 298 and put 125 under judicial control.[1][2]