In a wide-ranging and surprise security operation that covered 6 Turkish states, authorities were able to arrest the famous "drug baron" Shtin Guren, the main suspect in the case of the ship "United S" which was seized off the Spanish coast carrying 10 tons of cocaine, in one of the most dangerous cases of international maritime smuggling.
The operation followed extensive investigations that revealed close links between Guren and the Serbian mafia and international smuggling networks. The Istanbul Public Prosecutor's Office began its investigations immediately after the Spanish authorities announced on January 7, the seizure of the huge shipment.
Simultaneous raids and asset freezing
Early yesterday, Monday, security teams carried out simultaneous raids that targeted 19 different locations and resulted in the arrest of Guren and 6 other suspects, including Engin Chavush, Masoud Yaltchin, Ahmad, and Fares Diab.
The authorities decided to freeze all financial assets, real estate, company shares, bank accounts, and digital assets belonging to the detainees, as a precautionary measure aimed at drying up funding sources.
A smuggling route across continents
Investigations revealed that the ship "United S" sailed from the Turkish port of Mersin in October 2025, stopped at ports in Libya and Morocco before crossing the Strait of Gibraltar towards the Atlantic Ocean, where it visited ports Fortaleza and Belem in Brazil, before picking up its shipment from mid-sea off the coast of Suriname and heading again towards Europe.
Reports indicated that the drugs were hidden inside 295 packages, each weighing about 35 kilograms, while Serbians boarded the ship before it left Belem port in Brazil, strengthening the hypotheses of partnership with the Balkan mafia.
Legal deception before the last voyage
On the legal side in Spain, authorities are still detaining 16 people who were on the ship, including 4 Turks, 2 Serbs, and an Indian.
Investigations revealed that the ship was owned by "Kamer Shipping" before it was sold and its ownership was transferred to "Capo Maritime Co" on October 9, 2025, just before the last voyage, in a step investigators see as an attempt at deception and evading legal responsibility.
This is not the first incident of its kind, as the ship "Haliç – Equality" was also seized at the beginning of 2025 loaded with about 9 tons of drugs, and it too was owned by a Turkish party, and was sold just before its departure from Turkey in a similar scenario.
The arrest of Shtin Guren brings to mind the famous "Swamp" case in 2020, which was described at the time as the largest drug operation in the history of the Republic, before he was later released and acquitted in 2024, only to return today to the forefront of the most dangerous international organized crime files.
