As most Turks prepare for a quiet New Year’s Eve amid economic woes and a surge in COVID-19 cases, a nationwide crackdown on bootleg alcohol has revealed thousands of counterfeit bottles that were likely to literally poison the new year. 

A statement from the Interior Ministry on Dec. 28 revealed the participation of more than 20,000 police and gendarmerie officers in Operation Alcohol in the country’s 81 provinces, seizing 20,000 liters of counterfeit liquor — mostly vodka, whiskey and raki, Turkey’s aniseed national drink. Called by the pro-government press one of the biggest operations against bootleg alcohol ever, the police said they also seized thousands of empty bottles that would have been refilled with the counterfeit alcohol, fake alcohol labels, along with some guns and drugs. The Istanbul police continued Wednesday with an operation at a warehouse in Tarabya, one of Istanbul's chic districts.

“New Year’s Eve is the top event on a bootlegger’s calendar because this is when there is a high demand for alcohol and people want to stretch their budget as much as they can,” Erol Dundar, chairman of Turkey’s Alcohol Shops Association, told Al-Monitor. “So the Interior Ministry habitually launches such operations, which we, alcohol shop owners, support.”

“What we do not support is to put high taxes on booze so that people are unable to afford legal alcohol products, or make use of a few bad apples to demonize all alcohol consumption,” he added.