Suspect claims he didn't exploit truckers driving aid to Turkey earthquake victims

Burak P. (30) from The Hague denies exploiting the truck drivers who drove aid supplies to Turkey after a massive earthquake in the country on his behalf. The truckers went to the police after finding 8.5 million euros in ecstasy pills among the aid supplies and accused P. of paying them too little, making them work too long hours, and providing them with false papers. But P. says he treated his truckers well.

This case is “hugely inflated,” his lawyer Sidney Smeets said at the first pre-trial hearing in this case in the court in Den Bosch on Wednesday, AD reports. “A case that has been deliberately drenched in sensational sauce.”

P. is not suspected of involvement in the enormous drug transport discovered among the aid supplies in February 2023, but the drugs are often mentioned in the same breath as the case against him, Smeets said.

“Involvement in the drug transport is a disgusting accusation,” Smeets said. “My client has family in Turkey, family who were also victims of the earthquake. The whole case started with a lie. The lie of the four informants.”

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) suspects P. of exploiting four Turkish truck drivers, aged 26, 30, 33, and 41, between July 2022 and February 2023. According to the OM, they worked illegally, sometimes for up to 18 hours six to seven days in a row, received little pay and poor housing, and had fake IND documents.

“People always think they are not paid enough,” Smeets said. According to him, the truckers have “quite a lot on their record in Turkey” and are very happy to be “allowed to stay in the Netherlands as long as this case is ongoing.”

P. also came to his own defense in the hearing. “I dare say that I am the only one in the Netherlands who treats his drivers so well,” he said. “If it were true that I exploited my drivers, why did they stay with me? What prevented them from pulling their vehicle over and leaving?”

The court still decided to extend P.’s pre-trial custody until the next preliminary hearing, scheduled for January.