International drug lord escapes Turkish prison with fake document

Burcu Purtul Uçar - ISTANBUL

Doğan Alagöz is also known as “Dr. Drugs” and “The Synthetic Baron."

A drug lord who has served prison sentences in four different countries escaped from a maximum security prison in western Turkey using a cunning plot which involved a fake release order, Hürriyet sources have reported.

Doğan Alagöz, also known as “Dr. Drugs” and “The Synthetic Baron,” was sentenced in 2013 to 12.5 years in prison, after police found thousands of amphetamine-class illegal drugs in his Istanbul workplace.

Alagöz escaped from Istanbul’s Silivri prison in early January, according to Hürriyet’s sources. 

The 10th Heavy Penal Court in Istanbul received a fax on Jan. 16, from what was apparently Turkey’s Court of Appeals, stating Alagöz was to be released. A court official then "confirmed" the faxed instruction by calling the telephone number on the document itself, before notifying the prison authority. Alagöz was released the same day.

Turkish authorities did not notice the scam for weeks. Almost a month later, Ahmet Aykuş, a prosecutor in Istanbul’s Bakırköy district, discovered Alagöz had been released without an authentic court order.

Alagöz, who has been incarcerated in German, French, Italian and Turkish jails for over 20 years, is now being sought by the police yet again. The officials who released him are also being questioned, Hürriyet’s sources said.