14 citizens of the Republic of Turkey have been detained, 11 of whom were wanted by the Turkish police internationally on the basis of Interpol red notices issued over the past 5 years, and 3 were wanted by Turkish law enforcement agencies nationally, - Irakli Dondoladze, Deputy Director of the Central Criminal Police Department, said at the briefing held at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

According to him, the relevant legal procedures provided for by law are underway against the detainees in order to ensure their transfer to the Republic of Turkey.

“The employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs are actively cooperating with the law enforcement agencies of partner states in order to identify and detain foreign citizens wanted by various countries on the territory of Georgia.

Over the past 24 hours, the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, together with their Turkish colleagues, conducted another successful police operation at several locations across Georgia – 14 citizens of the Republic of Turkey have been detained, 11 of whom were wanted by the Turkish police on the basis of Interpol Red Notices issued internationally over the past 5 years, and 3 were wanted by Turkish law enforcement agencies on a national level.

The investigation conducted by law enforcement agencies has established that the majority of the detained persons entered the territory of Georgia before an international search was announced for them, while some entered Georgia illegally, for which relevant criminal proceedings are underway.

Among the detainees are persons accused of committing serious and especially serious crimes. Among them: wanted persons accused of 26 episodes of production, sale, purchase and possession of narcotic and psychotropic substances, theft, intentional bodily harm, threats, illegal purchase-storage-carrying of firearms, damage to other people's property, committing a depraved act against a minor, evading punishment, membership in a criminal organization, murder and fraud.

Relevant legal procedures provided for by law are underway against the detainees in order to ensure their transfer to the justice of the Republic of Turkey.

The detention of the aforementioned persons were preceded by lengthy operational and search measures. The planning and implementation of the operation, along with employees of various units of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor General's Office of Georgia, involved attaches of the Police and Gendarmerie of the Republic of Turkey accredited in Georgia.

We would also like to express our special gratitude to our Turkish colleagues who are in Georgia today. The close and long-standing cooperation between Georgia and Turkey in the field of law enforcement allows us to effectively combat organized crime and achieve concrete results together.

It is worth noting that this is another successful police operation that was carried out jointly by the employees of the law enforcement agencies of Georgia and Turkey. Law enforcement officers of the two countries jointly conducted an operation to detain wanted persons in August last year as well and detained 14 persons wanted internationally by the Turkish police,” reads the statement.