Fresh allegations by a fugitive Turkish mobster have rekindled controversy in Turkey over arms shipments to Syria and murky cross-border trade, allegedly involving the inner circle of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but his revelations constitute just a few pieces in a giant puzzle. 

In a series of viral videos since early May, Sedat Peker, a convicted criminal gang leader, has been implicating members and cronies of the ruling party in myriad crimes and laying bare his own ties with politicians. Peker — a self-described nationalist who used to organize rallies in support of Erdogan and enjoy favor with pro-government circles — says his revelations are score-settling for his being cast out, apparently as a result of power struggles in government ranks. 

In his latest video May 30, Peker recounted how he shipped steel vests, binoculars and other equipment aid to Syrian Turkmens in November 2015. He claimed that SADAT, a private military company run by a figure close to Erdogan, requested to add arms-laden trucks to his convoy, yet the weapons went to Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian offshoot of al-Qaeda, rather than the Turkmens.

SADAT — founded in 2012 by Adnan Tanriverdi, a retired general who has served as an adviser to Erdogan — rejected Peker’s claims as “slander.”