Ankara, Sep 4 (IANS): Turkish police detained 227 suspects for drug trafficking and seized more than 470 kg of narcotics, the country's Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on Wednesday.

The police seized 479 kg of narcotics and 160,967 pills in simultaneous operations in 42 provinces, Yerlikaya said on social media platform X, without specifying the time of the operations, Xinhua news agency reported.

“We are determined to cleanse our country from drug and poison dealers” In the “Narkocelik-37” operations conducted in the province against the sale and use of drugs; 479Kg of Narcotics,160,967 of Narcotic Pills were seized,Poison Dealer and Street Vendor were caught," Yerlikaya said on X.

According to Yerlikaya, seven police teams, 1,418 personnel, 12 aerial vehicles and 37 narcotic detector dogs participated in the operations, dubbed "Narkocelik-37."

The Turkish minister shared a video of the seized narcotics and footage of operations in which police teams were apprehending the suspects.

Türkiye has ramped up its crackdown on drug smuggling since 2023.