Police: Gangland murders likely if busted coke smugglers hide

The police are concerned that the confiscation of 5 thousand kilograms of Netherlands-bound cocaine, worth about 150 million euros, in Belgium last week, will lead to retaliation within the crime world, possibly in the form of assassinations. Investigators are therefore calling on anyone involved in this shipment to turn themselves in. The 5 thousand kilos of cocaine was found in a shipping container filled with pineapples in the port of Antwerp on March 21st. The packets of cocaine were marked with acronyms, logos and code names, including Nerd, Fox and Tisso. The Dutch police were called in and the decision was made to take out the drugs, but send the container to its destination to see who came for it. The container was sent on to Drimmelen, where a man was arrested when he came for it. A second man was arrested in Breda. The police also arrested a third suspect, a 44 year old resident of Bergen op Zoom on Thursday. "This cargo of seized cocaine has a street value of about 150 million euros. Somewhere people are losing that money because the cargo was discovered", the police write on their site. "That discovery was obviously good customs work, but experience shows that within a criminal organization someone from their own circles is often considered the guilty party. Murders were committed in the past due to such parties disappeared drugs." The police are therefore "emphatically" calling on those involved to turn themselves in.