Turkey's ever-growing human trafficking scandal: Migration officer among those illegally settled in Europe

A Turkish migration officer named Kadir Akbulut was revealed to be among the citizens who traveled to Europe and settled there illegally with a state passport. Germany recently started a human trafficking investigation about the scheme that's thought to have transported dozens to Europe across the years.

Tuesday April 27 2021 10:13 am

Duvar English

An officer of the Turkish Migration Management General Directorate was among the citizens who traveled to Europe with special state passports and illegally stayed there, the daily Sözcü reported on April 27.

The report comes after it was revealed that dozens of Turkish nationals are sent to Europe as part of municipal organizations with state passports, also known as "gray passports," and never returned.

Assistant Migration Expert Kadir Akbulut reportedly traveled to the Netherlands as part of a training program in 2018, and never returned to Turkey.

Akbulut was a defendant in a lawsuit related to U.S.-based Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen at the time of his departure in 2018.

Ironically, Akbulut had also been a speaker at a 2017 conference in Uzbekistan about the "Role of Hotlines in Combatting Human Trafficking."

Most recently, the German Interior Ministry said that they had started deportations and entry bans in relation to the human trafficking investigation they are conducting into the Turkish municipalities' scheme.