Turkey opens first case against oil smuggling with Syria

REYHANLI, Turkey — A court in the Turkish border town Reyhanli has begun hearing the first case of oil smuggling from Syria, which has brought Turkey under intense international pressure. Al-Monitor was provided full access to the indictment and the transcript of the first open public hearing, which took place Sept. 15. As the judge has not yet decided the case, Al-Monitor was strictly advised to only report on the generic themes of what the prosecutor detailed with extreme precision and unquestionable evidence.

The case lays out how a small village with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants on the border with Syria — called the Besaslan village attached to Reyhanli — transformed itself into a sort of cooperative where everyone mutually agreed to take part in illegal oil smuggling. The families who don’t want to actively participate are given hush money — 1,500 Turkish lira weekly ($663), which comes to a considerable amount in monthly terms (6,000 Turkish lira, or $2,650). It is a skillfully organized network where even family ties are overridden by the alleged chief of the network, referred to as A.B. The indictment also lays out how border patrols take part, exploiting their privileged status to benefit from the smuggling.

A military officer, for example, told the judge that the commander of the border post advised the village men “not to carry out the smuggling above ground, but underground.” The indictment reveals how the nature of smuggling changed from transporting the oil in plastic cans to laying pipes underground. A separate military officer also revealed that while the thermal cameras at the border leave no blind spot, the village men are advised to cross into Syria from an area where there are a lot of olive trees, and to turn their vehicles’ lights off. The village men learn about military movements in advance and use that critical information not to get caught. The Catch-22 is that the other side of the border is controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra militants, and the village smugglers share that critical information with the militants.

Those familiar with the case, who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, express concern over the serious clashes of interests between the two sides of the border. “These villagers made more than $800 million in 16 months that they probably could not have imagined in their lifetime," a source said. "While they only focus on making easy money, the militants on the other side of the border don’t even care about their lives and they learn about our military’s movements. This not only puts our security at risk here, but also threatens the entire security of the nation.”