Turkey Commends Armenia for Extraditing Organized Crime Figures

ANKARA – Turkey has expressed gratitude to Armenia for extraditing two individuals described as members of a Turkish organized crime group.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced that the extradition was carried out over the weekend, following an Interpol “Red Notice” request.

“Turkey appreciates the cooperation demonstrated in this matter by Armenia,” the ministry said in a statement.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry also reported the extraditions on Sunday, citing the Interpol arrest warrant for the two individuals, who are reportedly Turkish nationals.

According to Turkey’s Interior Ministry, as reported by the state-owned Anadolu news agency, the individuals are “organized crime ringleader Ercan Yilmaz and his accomplice Ibrahim Kaymak.” Yilmaz has reportedly been wanted in Turkey for the past 15 years. The ministry released a short video showing masked Turkish police officers escorting the two men onto a plane bound for Turkey.

Armenia did not specify when or how the men entered the country. Their extradition comes just over a month after Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) reported a “possible attempt” to illegally cross the border from Turkey.

On December 11, Russian border guards alerted the NSS to a suspected illegal border crossing. They detected damage to barbed wire along a section of the Armenian-Turkish border and footprints leading toward a nearby Armenian village.

The NSS announced on December 12 that it was undertaking “necessary operational-intelligence measures” in response to the alert. However, it has not clarified whether the individuals in question had indeed crossed the border or were apprehended as a result.