ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how the Kurdish separatist group, Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan (PKK) or Kurdistans Workers Party, funded itself over three decades as it evolved from a political separatist group to an armed insurgency using terrorist tactics. The group has raised funds from a variety of sources including state sponsorship, voluntary contributions, extortion rackets, kidnapping, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. According to the Turkish intelligence report, donations meant for the PKK are regularly deposited to the accounts of the following charities: Todays Zaman, Intelligence report on PKK alarms Turkey, for the first seven charities. In the 1990s, the Turkish National Police investigated hundreds of narcotics cases linked to the PKK. While most of the cases involved opiates, there were also cases in which cocaine, amphetamines, and chemicals used to manufacture these drugs, were also confiscated. While there were drug-trafficking related arrests in Europe especially Germany, terrorism related arrests did not pick up until well after the post-9/11 designations went into effect.
