Weed found in shoebox sent to Turkish lawmaker’s son

It wasn’t cash this time, but rather half a kilo of weed that has been found inside a shoebox originally sent to the son of a lawmaker from the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

Mustafa Aysan Öztaylan, the son of AKP Balıkesir deputy Mehmet Cemal Öztaylan, said the package was sent as a gift by a childhood friend living in the southeastern province of Mardin. He also claimed that he had no idea about its contents, adding that he has never smoked weed before in his life.

“When I asked him what was inside [the shoebox], he told me that it was tea from Seyhan and Arab coffee,” Öztaylan told police during his interrogation in Ankara.

The marijuana was found during a random police search on a bus in Adana late July 24.

During a raid that was part of the graft investigation last December, huge sums of cash worth $4.5 million were found in shoeboxes held by the former general manager of the state-run Halkbank, propelling “shoeboxes” into the Turkish popular conscience.

At one point, a woman was even detained after she showed Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan a shoebox prior to his rally ahead of the local elections in the Aegean province of Manisa.