Hüseyin Baybaşin (born 25 December 1956) is a Kurdish drug baron and organised crime boss. Following his drug trafficking in the 1990s, he made his name internationally.
He is referred to by the European press as the "Europe's Pablo Escobar" and strong family relationships were mentioned by commentators. Prosecutor Robin Plummer, made the following statement about Hüseyin Baybaşin: "We watched him for eight months, it was like watching the movie The Godfather. Every day someone new would come and the first thing they would do was kiss Baybaşin's hand. The Baybaşin family terrorized other mafias in the UK for many years."
Baybaşin was a notorious criminal against whom European states had issued search warrants. He is still serving a life sentence in the Netherlands, where he has been convicted since 2002.
Early life
His uncle, Mehmet Şerif Baybaşin in the 1960s
Hüseyin Baybaşin was born in Lice, Diyarbakır on December 25, 1956.[1] His family, like every other families in the district, was a poor Kurdish family with many children.[1][2][3] At the age of 14, he met his first drug, marijuana, and started smoking it.[1][4] When his elder brothers turned drugs into an illegal business, he became a drug dealer.
In the early 1970s, his uncle Mehmet Şerif Baybaşin started producing drugs by refining heroin in an isolated village in Lice.[5]
Crime bossing
In 1976, he was caught while transporting 24 lb (11 kg) hashish to Istanbul.[6] In 1984, he was arrested in the United Kingdom for smuggling drugs internationally on the basis of a fake passport.[6] He was sent from the United Kingdom to Turkey to serve his sentence but was released in 1989.
The rise
The cargo ship Kısmetim-1, allegedly carrying Baybaşin's drugs, was sunk by its captain in 1992 on the orders of Hüseyin Baybaşin
Hüseyin Baybaşin became particularly famous after the MV Kısmetim-1 shipwreck, which shook the public order in Turkey.[7] The Kısmetim-1 cargo ship, which was besieged by the Turkish Police, allegedly carrying ~6,800 lb (3,100 kg)[8] of base morphine to be smuggled to Turkey, was sunk by its crew in 1992.[9] The alleged drugs were never recovered.
In 1994, he fled to the United Kingdom to join his brother Abdullah Baybaşin and applied for asylum.[10] In 1995, he was arrested in the Rotterdam for dealing in firearms without a licence.[11]
By 1998, the Baybaşin brothers had amassed a fortune smuggling heroin to Europe. Hüseyin and Abdullah moved to North London and chose Amsterdam as their base.[5][11]
Falling
Entrance of Vught Prison, 2006
In 1997, Hüseyin Baybaşin was on the blacklist of British foreign intelligence MI6.[12] Baybaşin's strict confidentiality was difficult to unravel and was discussed with the Dutch (AIVD), Belgian (GISS), and German (BND) intelligence services.[11] After intensive intelligence work, the intelligence coalition tracked down Baybaşin and captured Hüseyin Baybaşin and his nephew Gıyasettin Baybaşin in a villa in Lieshout on 27 March 1998 in a joint operation code-named "Black Tulip".[13] He was initially placed in a regular detention centre in Rotterdam. On 26 June 1998, it was decided to place him in a high-security detention centre in Vught. His detention in Vught Prison was extended several times.[12]
Hüseyin Baybaşin and Gıyasettin Baybaşin were tried and found guilty of murder, hostage, racketeering, kidnapping, forgery, and drug trafficking on 10 February 2001.[14][13] Ton Derksen, a Dutch professor emeritus, got access to the telephone recordings which were presented as evidence.[15] According to him, the telephone recordings were manipulated.[16] Hüseyin Baybaşin was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment, which was commuted to life imprisonment in July 2002.[17] Gıyasettin Baybaşin was sentenced to 11-year imprisonment.[18] Abdullah Baybaşin was convicted around the same time and imprisoned in the United Kingdom.[5]
On 24 December 2003, Hüseyin Baybaşin was transferred to another prison with a different regime.[citation needed] On 23 March 2004, a psychiatric report found that Baybaşin had developed various mental problems including chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and a strong tendency towards somatisation during his detention in the maximum security prison.[12]
In 1998, Baybaşin's fortune was known to be £18 million (£40 million in inflation adjusted 2024 pounds).[23][24] According to the reports of the Dutch police, Baybaşin owns movable and immovable property (1998):[23]
5 cars, 3 pieces of valuable land, 2 furniture companies, and a house in the Netherlands.
In the European public opinion of the early 2000s he was constantly referred to as "Europe's Pablo Escobar" or "European Escobar".[2][25][26]
Robin Plummer, the British prosecutor, made the following statement about Hüseyin Baybaşin:
We watched him for eight months, it was like watching the movie The Godfather. Every day someone new would come and the first thing they would do was kiss Baybaşin's hand. The Baybaşin family terrorized other mafias in the UK for many years.[27]
Baybaşin was once referenced in the Valley of the Wolves, Turkey's most popular TV series about the mafia. In the 47th episode of the series, a scenario in which the goods of a drug baron named "Husrev Aga"—from Diyarbakır—sink into the sea with Kısmetim-1 (renamed as Nasibim-1 in the series) was included.[28]
^"Dava 7 yılda bitmedi, Abdullah Baybaşin tahliye oldu". Haberturk (in Turkish). 2017-10-02. Retrieved 13 July 2024. Savcı Plummer: Sekiz ay boyunca onu izledik, sanki The Godfather filmini izliyor gibiydik. Her gün yeni biri gelirdi ve ilk iş Baybaşin'in elini öpmek olurdu. Baybasin ailesi uzun yıllar boyunca BK'deki diğer mafyalara korku saldı.
