Yakuza using Istanbul as drug trade base: UN report

From online dispatches

Models show their bodies covered with tattoos by Japanese tattooist Horiyoshii III at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Tokyo. AFP photo

Japan's powerful Yakuza criminal organization has set up bases in Istanbul to traffic drugs coming from Iran, a U.N. report has said.
 
The information was included in the World Drug Report 2012 from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), daily Vatan reported today. 
 
UNODC reported that Iranian organized crime gangs had begun the production of methamphetamines and that the Yakuza had set up "offices" in Istanbul to bring methamphetamines produced in Iran to Turkey before shipping them to Japan. 
 
Iran tops a list of countries in terms of the number of drugs seized, having confiscated 33 tons of heroin already in 2012.  
 
Turkish law enforcement officers have confiscated 13 tons of heroin so far in 2012 – amounting to 16 percent of all the heroin seized around the world this year. Turkey's strict measures have contributed to the reduction of drug distribution in the United Kingdom, the report added. 
 
Turkey, meanwhile, topped a list of countries in terms of the highest amount of methamphetamines seized. A total of 126 kilograms of the substance has been confiscated in the country, followed by Sweden with 124 kilograms.