Sawt Falasteen - 'Unprecedented' Europe raids net 200 arrests, drugs haul

Alongside the arrests, officers in Operation "Bulut" ("Cloud" in Turkish) seized more than 21 tonnes of drugs, including 3.3 million MDMA tablets, said EU police agency Europol, which coordinated the sting.

"This was one of the biggest strikes against organised crime groups in recent years," Andy Kraag, head of Europol's European Serious Organised Crime Centre, told AFP in an interview.

Images of the raids showed armed police storming into properties, apprehending suspects and pinning them to the floor before handcuffing them.

Authorities also confiscated drugs, vehicles and cash used by the groups.

"This is a massive blow because I think it's unprecedented," said Kraag, adding the operation sent "a big message to organised crime."

"And the message is basically that even though you might think that you're resilient, that you're a big player, at the end of the day, you will get dismantled," warned Kraag.

Police detained a total of 234 people in the coordinated raids, 225 of whom were picked up in Turkey, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya told reporters earlier Tuesday.

Yerlikaya said the groups were aiming to ship cocaine to Turkey and Europe by sea and land from South American countries, as well as heroin from Iran and Afghanistan, skunk cannabis through the Balkans, and ecstasy through Europe.

The four dismantled groups were also involved in money laundering, violent crime, and other shady criminal activities.

As well as Turkey, police made arrests in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Spain.

Europol's Kraag said authorities had detained the whole network of these groups "from the top boss to the low-end street criminal."

The sting was made possible by reading messages from the cracking four years ago of encrypted communications platforms Sky ECC and ANOM used by criminals.

Kraag told AFP that the "gold mine" of intercepted messages was "like the gift that keeps on giving."

"They constantly lead to actionable intelligence and to ongoing operations," he said.

"I would not exclude further arrests," added Kraag.

R.Shaban--SF-PST