By Jirair Tutunjian, Toronto, 8 July 2025
Armenians and millions of people around the world know that whatever it calls itself—Ottoman or —Turkey and truth are strangers to each other, and abiding by the law is an optional suggestion.
The once “Sick Man of Europe” has now become a leading member of Liars Anonymous Inc. After China, Turkey is second in the production of counterfeit goods, from honey to designer bags to mislabeled Turkey-made hummus as the product of an Arab country.
Turkey, which produces 115,000 tons of honey a year, mixes sugar, syrup, glucose, fructose and other illegal ingredients in its honey. A European investigation has revealed that 43 Turkish honey producers were brazenly adulterating their product. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) should take Ankara to court for ruining the reputation of millions of bees, which are saddled with the misfortune of living in Occupied Asia Minor.
In 2023, the European Anti-Fraud Officer’s analysis revealed 40 percent of honey imported from Turkey had been tampered with: 14 of 15 Turkish samples.
Fake designer bags (Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Hermes) and other high-end French fashion products (clothes and cosmetics) are also manufactured and mislabeled in Turkey.
The Turkish counterfeiters also manufacture fake Viagra, which with misplaced jocularity, they refer to as “erectile honey.”
Turkey’s counterfeit market is worth $3 billion. Some sources say the figure is more likely in the vicinity of $10 billion.
Because of lax rules and a government bureaucracy prone to traditional bribery, the criminal Turkish industrialists have extended their tentacles even into fake pharmaceuticals. They have even produced a counterfeit cancer-combating drug and shipped it to the United States. That proud Scot–Johnny Walker—who has never stumbled, has fallen several times when a number of Turks became ill after imbibing the fake Johnny.
In their fake production conspiracy, Turks also deploy counterfeit labels, tags, and stickers. For example, to steal a slice from Arab food exporting businesses, they imprint Arabic words on counterfeit Turkish products to parade them as Lebanese, Egyptian, etc. Ironically and sadly, many desperate Syrian refugees, who fled the Syrian Civil War, are now employed in the counterfeit-producing sweatshops of Turkey.
Europeans have estimated Turkey’s criminal shenanigans cause loss of 100,000 jobs each year in Europe. But despite the huge damage and danger, the EU has not taken effective action to prosecute Turkey’s criminals.
Of course, the root cause for the flourishing Turkish fake product industry is the arbitrary-lackadaisical-corrupt Turkish government bureaucrats. Erdogan, of course, appreciates any coin to keep his floundering economy afloat. After all, his (or is it his son-in-law?) has piled millions by stealing Syrian oil.
Countless times a day, Turks lie, cheat, and steal from millions of Europeans whose great-grandparents revived the Sick Man of Europe more than a century ago. These are also the same Europeans who blindly admitted millions of Third World Turks into their countries despite the social-religious-criminal-economic-political unrest their admission has caused from Munich to Marseille, from Brussels to Bonn.
These same untrustworthy Turks, who lounge on 90 percent of Historic Armenia, are the people demented-treacherous Nikol Pashinyan and his corrupt cohort want us to believe are reliable peace partners. Some six hundred years of living under the threatening yataghan haven’t taught these Armenians that the Turk can’t be trusted.
Turkey is the same country whose dictator professes respect for non-Muslim religions but converts the Aya Sophia Byzantine cathedral into a mosque. Just a few days ago, Turkey announced that it would repair one of Ani’s main cathedrals and convert it to a mosque.
There are 90,000 mosques in Turkey.
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