Dutch citizen Nejmi Saki accused in Turkey of running drug ring with Australian Hakan Ayik

Dutch citizen Nejmi Saki, one of 41 people arrested in Turkey, is wanted in Australia for allegedly running a drug ring with the Comanchero motorcycle gang and Sydney man Hakan Ayik.

Turkish police arrest alleged crime suspects including Hakan Arif in November 2023. Picture: Supplied

Dutch citizen and Australian organised crime target Nejmi Saki has been accused of running a drug ring with Australian crime figure Hakan Arif, smuggling drugs between The Netherlands and Australia.

Police statements uncovered in Turkey after Saki and 40 others were arrested in mass raids by Turkish police in early November show Saki is accused of working with Australian members of the Comanchero outlaw motorcycle gang to import drugs from The Netherlands to sell in Australia.

The documents show Saki is accused of giving himself the nickname “the Scorpion’’ to communicate on the encrypted app AN0M, a supposedly secure means of communication that was promoted by Australian Turkish drug fugitive Hakan Ayik.

The app turned out to be a Trojan horse deployed by the FBI, and cracked by the Australian Federal Police in Canberra, who copied and read 28 million messages sent on it.

Among those monitored on the app was Saki – an associate of Ayik, Arif and their gang of fellow Australian fugitives in Turkey – who has been wanted by the Australian Federal Police and NSW Police Force for years in relation to Operation Veyda, an investigation into a $1bn drug importation plot.

He was arrested on an Interpol red notice.

Nineteen people in Australia were charged by the AFP as a result of Operation Veyda’s investigations into the 2017 attempt to import almost two tonnes of drugs into Australia, and related criminality; 16 were convicted.

Syndicate members were also jailed for money-laundering and smuggling illicit tobacco.

The most high profile of those convicted was the brother of Sydney’s Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim. Moustafa “Michael” Ibrahim was in 2022 sentenced to 30 years’ jail, later reduced to 25 years on appeal, for attempting to import MDMA, cocaine and ice into Australia. He was arrested in Dubai, the city where Saki lived for four or five years before relocating permanently to Turkey.

Michael Ibrahim outside his home in Sydney.

According to Turkish media reports, Saki denied any involvement in crime after his arrest in early November, and said he had no money and was being supported by his family. He had established a business known as Necmi aki Metal OtomotivInsaat Gıda Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, but claimed to be working as a sports instructor. Police reportedly said they could find no banking transactions relating to the business, which reported a loss in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

“I could not operate due to economic reasons in Turkey. I have not had an income for a long time. My family supports me fin­ancially,’’ he is said to have told police in statements obtained by Turkish journalist Ismail Saymaz.

However, during a search of Saki’s house, police allege they found a large number of mobile phones, Turkish and foreign currency, gold, two Rolex watches, marijuana and pills.

Saki reportedly told police he had been using drugs for two years.

He reportedly denied any involvement in crime, saying: “I did not negotiate … with anyone, I did not deliver drugs.’’

Saymaz revealed Saki served three years and 10 months of a six-year, eight-month prison term, after being convicted in 2001 in Turkish with selling ecstasy.

According to Turkish media reports, Saki was the Dutch leader of a transnational drug syndicate, and Hakan Arif, known in Turkey as Hakan Arif Tavakcu, was the Australian leader.

After Australian police received information that 800kg of ecstasy were to be imported into Australia from The Netherlands, an undercover operative was inserted into the Saki/Arif crime syndicate.

The operative was reported to have spoken to Saki on a BlackBerry device to discuss delivery of the drugs via a red van in The Netherlands in May 2017. The operative also reportedly met with Arif and Saki in a hotel and a steak house in Dubai on June 21, 2017.

According to the report, police obtained messages exchanged between Saki and the undercover operative discussing the deal, with Saki texting the ­operative on May 24, 2017: “Brother, it’s all ready and the package is ­triple vacuumed. Each box is 25kg.”

The undercover operative is said to have replied: “Excellent. I will check one or two quickly and then give to people in Australia.”

On May 26 that year, the deal was alleged to have been completed, with the undercover operative who received the ecstasy telling Michael Ibrahim “It’s done” and handing money to Sydney crime figures Moustafa Dib and Ahmad Ahmad, who later received 18-year and 15-year jail terms.

Saki is reported to have also told police he had never heard of or used AN0M, and he did not know Sydney drug kingpin Hakan Ayik (also known as Hakan Reis or Joseph Reis in Turkey), or the Melbourne bikie Hasan Topal, who has changed his name to Alp Ozturk.

Hakan Ayik, one of the world's most wanted men, was arrested in Turkey on November 2.

Saymaz also appears to have obtained Ayik’s police statement, in which he says “I am not a gang leader’’ and confirmed he owned a hotel and a currency exchange ­office.

The hotel is likely to be the Kings Cross Hotel in an up-­market area of Istanbul, which Ayik openly used as his headquarters in Turkey and where he fraternised with friends including Arif, and former senior Comanchero leader Duax Ngakuru, who was arrested in January.

“I know Comanchero as a motor­cycle club,” Ngakuru was reported as telling police, while also denying involvement with AN0M.

He says he knew Ayik from “childhood and school’’.

The pair attended James Cook Boys Technology High School in Kogarah in suburban Sydney.

“I’m a businessman. Some of the suspects are my childhood friends. I live in a rented house,’’ Ayik claimed.

The report details other movements of the gang of associates in Ayik’s orbit, who were also rounded up in the early November raids.

Bahatdin Ferhan told police he grew up in the same neighbourhood as Ayik. The report says he received a tax amnesty in 2019.

Another Australian, Baris Tukel, who settled in Turkey in 2015, was reported to be running a mine in the city of Bingol, in the east of the country.

Arif, whose wife Sibel was also arrested, was reported as having moved to Turkey 10 years ago. He was listed as the co-owner of a real estate company and a factory producing electric vehicle batteries.

He stated that he knew Ayik from Australia, saying “we studied at the same school, we lived in the same neighbourhood. I am his older brother.”

Another Australian, listed as “Lebanese’’ Jimmy Avajian, was reported to have settled in Turkey with his wife and obtained citizenship there.