Iranian drug smugglers nabbed after taking Turkish cab 1,200 kilometers
ERZURUM
Taxi driver Vahit T.
A Turkish taxi driver who became suspicious after his customers asked him to travel 1,200 kilometers helped Turkish police nab two Iranian drug smugglers.
A 44-year-old and 27-year-old Iranian citizen who were unidentified took a cab in the eastern province of Erzurum this week, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Sept. 5.
The driver was apprehensive when the two men said they wanted to go to Istanbul, which is more than 1,200 kilometers away from Erzurum. He called the police hotline and asked whether it was legal for a taxi to bring a customer to another city according to Turkish law. He accepted the customers after the police gave a positive reply.
As the customers were talking in the cab during the long trip, the driver grew suspicious.
As they were about to leave Erzurum, the driver took the car to a security checkpoint in the Aşkale district and asked police to check the customers’ passports and search them.
In the end, police found 3.5 kilograms of heroin on the older man and the two men were arrested with two of their alleged partners in crime.
“They had promised me any amount of money I would ask for if I took them where they wanted. The police thanked me for my vigilance. No one should tolerate merchants of poison [heroin],” the taxi driver Vahit T. told the agency.
