A series of raids and arrests is part of a campaign against drug use. Over the past few weeks, dozens of artists, social media personalities, journalists, businesspeople, and sports figures have been arrested or summoned for questioning. Detainees are required to provide hair, blood, or urine samples to test for alleged drug use. While official information does not specify the primary target of the campaign, the Turkish press assumes it is aimed at combating cocaine use. According to the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet, the Prosecutor's Office had not issued a warrant for Can Yaman's arrest within these anti-drug operations. However, during the search of entertainment venues in the early hours of Saturday, officers arrested him for allegedly possessing narcotics, which the actor now denies. Yaman, famous for internationally successful telenovelas like 'Dream Bird', 'Sandokan', 'The Turk', and 'Violet Like the Sea', is also the lead in the Spanish series 'The Labyrinth of Butterflies', currently in production. The popular Turkish actor Can Yaman, star of numerous telenovelas, was briefly detained last Saturday during a police raid on entertainment venues but denies possessing drugs, reports the Turkish press on Monday. Yaman, actress Selen Görgüzel and five others were detained during a police raid on various nightlife spots in Istanbul as part of an operation against drug use and taken to the station in the early hours of Saturday. Can Yaman is released. The same Saturday night, Yaman was released without charges after giving a statement and providing blood and hair samples for analysis. Shortly after, he flew to Italy, where he resides, according to the Turkish newspaper Milliyet. From Rome, with several photos of himself with the Colosseum in the background, the actor posted a message in Italian on his Instagram account, denying that he was in possession of drugs, which, according to Turkish media, was the reason for his detention. «Dear Italian press: the Turkish press always treats me badly, but that's no novelty. Please don't make the mistake of copy-pasting the news that comes from the Bosphorus,» Yaman wrote. «Do you really think I would be walking around in venues with substances in an era when the police are conducting widespread raids, arresting many famous people? But you don't! If it were even remotely true, I wouldn't have been released so quickly as to be able to return to Italy the next day.»
