AFP and Turkish police new intel and video of Australian fugitive Hakan Ayik in Turkey
New footage of drug lord Hakan Ayik has emerged showing him living the high life in Turkey. See more in our new Narcos on the front line docuseries.
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Exclusive: Secret high level meetings have been held to plot the capture of Australia’s most wanted fugitive Hakan Ayik.
Turkish police chiefs flew to Australia this month to meet with the Australian Federal Police (AFP), where Ayik’s capture was understood to be top of their agenda.
Ayik – who was often photographed topless to show off his bodybuilder’s physique – has evaded authorities since he was exposed as the key figure who unwittingly spread the trojan horse app AN0M among the underworld two years ago.
But today we can reveal a new image and footage of the drug lord that he sent to friends, showing him enjoying his new life in an upmarket building in Turkey.
The crime boss, who has a direct line to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and Italy’s Ndrangheta mafia, also has links to Zekeriyakoy, an exclusive Istanbul suburb near the Black Sea.
Watch the new footage of Hakan Ayik in episode 1 of our Narcos on the front line docuseries above.
“He’s living the high life, he’s fat and rich off the drug sales that are coming into Australia, killing our kids,” AFP Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan said.
“And he cares for nothing. He cares about making money. He’s just a greedy individual.”
The drug lord, who controls a group known as the Aussie cartel and has a personal wealth of more than $1 billion, remains an influential figure in the Comanchero bikie gang.
Ayik is not technically a member of the gang but has the power to anoint its worldwide “supreme commander”.
That role was previously held by Sydney bikie Mark Buddle, who was dragged back to Australia from Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus in December last year.
Buddle, who is defending a charge of importing 160kg of cocaine into Melbourne in May 2021, was due back in court in Melbourne in September.
Ayik then gave his blessing to his former schoolmate, Duax Ngakuru, who was living in Turkey to run the bikie gang.
But he was arrested by organised crime detectives in Istanbul.
Ngakuru was nabbed in a January raid on his hide-out in the up-market hillside suburb of Zekeriyakoy, a 40-minute drive from Istanbul’s famous Blue Mosque.
Ayik and Ngakuru both attended James Cook Boys Technology High School in Kogarah, near Sydney’s Botany Bay.
It’s alleged those two schoolboys went on to be major drug players, with links to drugs smuggled in through Port Botany, which was just a 20-minute drive from their old school.
Ngakuru’s arrest in Zekeriyakoy raised suspicions that Ayik may also be holed up there.
Zekeriyakoy boasts luxury homes with designer pools similar to the standard seen in Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs and boutique restaurants with sweeping views.
The village is also a stone’s throw from the Bosphorus Strait, a waterway that separates Asia from Europe and a key point on the ancient Silk Road.
Turkey has been one of many of Ayik’s hiding spots since he fled Australia in 2010 when he was linked to a $230 million heroin importation.
His ability to continue moving tonnes of drugs into Australia while on the run has made him one of the Australian Federal Police’s key targets.
Ayik, 44, has an interest in the Kings Cross hotel in Istanbul, which posted an image of him on social media in 2020.
The photograph showed Ayik with a group of glamorous women enjoying dinner with the Istanbul skyline in the background.
Assistant Commissioner Ryan said the AFP is determined to get Ayik before a court in Australia.
“We can bring him to justice,” Asst Comm Ryan said.
“And we’re very, very fortunate that we have fantastic partners with the Turkish national police.
“They’re working tirelessly with us to bring him to justice and all those other people that may think that they’re able to avoid law enforcement around the world.”
The main players in Australia’s organised crime moved overseas after police started seizing their homes and high end cars.
Bikies were also banned from meeting in person and wearing their colours.
“Seventy per cent of our high value targets actually operate offshore,” Asst Comm Ryan said.
“So that’s very, very important for us to be able to influence and disrupt in an offshore setting.
Ayik was one of many Australian criminals working overseas.
The AFP is also targeting his associates linked to his Aussie cartel.
Commander Richard Chin, who runs transnational crime operations at the AFP, hunts the “upper echelons” of organised crime.
His role includes overseeing the fugitive strike team and a group of police tech experts cracking encrypted communications.
“We know exactly who those people are. We define them well and then we focus our efforts,” Commander Chin said.
“There’s a particular area under my command called Operation Gain, which is the offshore Disruption Task force.
“And that particular unit focuses on the baddest of the bad, the most difficult and enduring targets.”
The advent of the iPhone also made it easier for criminals to run a drug empire remotely.
“A vast majority of them can be based offshore and they’re going to be people who are globally connected, extremely wealthy, have been in the game, as it’s called, for a very long time,” Commander Chin said.
“They may be people not only in the drug trade, but also in the money laundering trade that facilitates the entire business model.”
Australia drug lords have enough cash to rub shoulders with the yacht sailing elite who summer on the Mediterranean Sea at places like Cannes on the French Riviera.
Police claim Ngakuru was worth $100 million when he was arrested in Turkey.
“We’d be talking about hundreds of millions of dollars, both in personal wealth and the kind of money that’s been generated through their enterprises,” Commander Chin said.
Turkish police and the AFP were “incredibly close”, he added, and they would not “tolerate organised crime in their country.”.
Commander Chin said Ayik and other Australian organised crime figures should hand themselves in.
“They should always be looking over their shoulder,” he said.
“For those who are out there, I’d strongly recommend that they actually reach out to us and talk about, you know, how we can sort out the kind of problems that they’re facing because they will not be able to rest.
“We will be absolutely focused. We’ve been doing this for a while, but we are increasing the pressure even more and the focus of the capabilities.
“And it’s not just us. We bring together all our friends across the Commonwealth, our global law enforcement partners. That’s a lot of horsepower.”
Originally published as AFP and Turkish police new intel and video of Australian fugitive Hakan Ayik in Turkey
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