A trafficking charge in Türkiye, and what the file has to prove.

TCK 188 is not one offence. It sets out separate conduct with separate ranges, and the difference between them is measured in decades.

Note what sits in 188/3. Transporting, storing, purchasing, accepting and possessing are all there, alongside selling. This is why the argument that nothing was actually sold does not, by itself, take a file out of the article.

The ranges above are the starting point, not the answer. Four separate provisions increase them, and they can apply together — but they do not all reach every tier. The substance type in 188/4-a, the two hundred metres in 188/4-b and the numbers and organisation in 188/5 are each expressed as applying to the paragraphs above, which means paragraphs one to three. Only the professional aggravation in 188/8, which speaks of the offences defined in this article, reaches the precursor offence in 188/7.

• Substance type (188/4-a). Where the substance is heroin, cocaine, morphine, base morphine, synthetic cannabinoid and derivatives, synthetic cathinone and derivatives, synthetic opioid and derivatives, or amphetamine and derivatives, the penalty is increased by half.
• Location (188/4-b). Where conduct under 188/3 takes place in public or publicly accessible places within two hundred metres of schools, dormitories, hospitals, barracks, places of worship and similar premises used collectively for treatment, education, military or social purposes — measured from their boundary walls, wire fences or similar markers — the penalty is increased by half.
• Numbers and organisation (188/5). Where the offence is committed by three or more persons together, the penalty is increased by half. Where it is committed within the activity of an organisation established to commit crime, the penalty is doubled.
• Profession (188/8). Where the offence is committed by a doctor, dentist, pharmacist, chemist, veterinarian, health officer, laboratory technician, midwife, nurse, dental technician, orderly, a person providing health services, or a person engaged in chemistry or the pharmaceutical trade, the penalty is increased by half.

Under 188/6, the provisions above also apply to any substance whose production requires official permission or whose sale depends on a prescription written by an authorised doctor, and which produces a narcotic or stimulant effect. That is a wide reach, and it catches medication.

There is one difference, and it is significant: for these substances the penalty may be reduced by up to half.

If your case involves medication you brought into Türkiye rather than a controlled drug in the ordinary sense, the prescription medication page deals with the border and customs side of that problem directly.

Time served abroad can be deducted

Under 188/2, where an act of exporting from Türkiye is characterised as importing by the other country, the part of the sentence already served following proceedings in that country is set off against the sentence imposed in Türkiye for the export. If you have been prosecuted at the other end of the same journey, that is not merely background — it has a direct effect on what remains to be served here.

A foreign conviction can count against you

As a general rule under TCK 58, judgments of foreign courts do not form a basis for recidivism. Drug manufacture and trafficking is one of a short list of exceptions — together with intentional killing, intentional injury, robbery, fraud and counterfeiting of money or valuable stamps. A previous conviction abroad for this offence can therefore be brought into a Turkish file in a way that most previous convictions cannot.

Turkish jurisdiction reaches beyond Türkiye

TCK 13 lists offences over which Turkish courts take jurisdiction irrespective of where the conduct occurred and irrespective of the nationality of the person. Drug manufacture and trafficking under 188, and facilitating the use of narcotics under 190, are on that list.

There is a condition the article attaches. Under TCK 13/2, prosecution in Türkiye for the offences in the first paragraph — drug manufacture and trafficking among them — depends on a request by the Minister of Justice. Whether that request exists is a condition of the proceedings, and it is checked rather than assumed.

• Characterisation. Whether the material supports supply at all, or only possession for personal use under TCK 191 — a different article with a different route, dealt with on the drug offences page.
• The lawfulness of the search and the seizure, and whether the record reflects what actually happened.
• The expert report on the substance: identity, purity and quantity, and whether the finding supports the derivative categories in 188/4-a.
• The two hundred metres. This is a measurement. It is capable of being wrong, and it is worth checking rather than accepting.
• Group and organisation. Whether what the file describes is an organisation within the meaning of the Code, or several people who are connected to each other. The difference between an increase by half and a doubling turns on it.
• Digital evidence — how a device was accessed, and what an extraction shows once it is read in context rather than in fragments.

The custody restriction specific to this offence

For drug manufacture and trafficking committed within an organisation, CMK 154/2 allows a judge to restrict the right to meet counsel in custody for twenty-four hours. The same provision states that no statement may be taken during that period. If you are told you cannot see a lawyer yet, that is exactly the period in which you should not be answering questions about the allegation either.

Under CMK 100/3, for a listed set of offences a ground for detention may be presumed where there are strong grounds based on concrete evidence that the offence was committed. Drug manufacture and trafficking under TCK 188 is on that list.

That does not make remand inevitable, and it does not remove the requirements that the suspicion be strong, that it rest on concrete evidence, and that detention be proportionate. But it does mean that the argument for release has to be made properly and made early. How remand, judicial control and release actually work is set out on its own page.