Cabinet wants maximum drug smuggling sentences raised from 12 to 16 years

Minister of Justice Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius wants to increase the maximum prison sentence for the import and export of illegal drugs from 12 to 16 years. Moreover, criminals should also be punished more harshly for other drug offences, she said.

Yeşilgöz proposed increasing the sentence for the trade and production of hard drugs from 8 to 12 years. Anyone caught with such prohibited substances should be able to be sent to prison for a maximum of 8 years, instead of the 6 year maximum that currently exists, she wrote in a letter to parliament.

In March, the minister already announced that she wanted to increase the sentences for serious drug crimes. Now she has also announced how many years she wants to add to the sentences. Yeşilgöz hopes to send a signal that this type of crime will not be tolerated. The minister wants to have a proposal ready by next autumn about which citizens and interest groups can give their opinion during a consultation period.

The tough approach to drug crime in Italy has served as a source of inspiration for Yesilgöz. Here, the powers of investigative services and the sentences have been considerably increased after examining judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino were murdered in 1992. They played an important role in the fight against the Sicilian mafia.

Part of that approach is also that the investigation is more focused on dismantling criminal power structures, instead of just individual leaders. Yeşilgöz also sees a shift in that direction in the Netherlands and wants to continue it. In addition, she wants to shorten the procedures, just like in Italy, and to make it easier to seize money and belongings if it is plausible that crimes have been committed in obtaining the assets.

Yeşilgöz also wants to tighten the rules on deals about key cooperating witnesses who provide information to prosecutors. She wants the law to state more clearly the terms that such deals must utilize. She wants to put standardized agreements on paper with regard to protection measures, the rights and obligations of the State and the people who need to be protected and the amount of money they can receive as a maintenance budget.

"Explosions in residential areas, young people are recruited for drug crime, farmers are put under pressure to let their barns be used for drug labs, our society and open economy are being corrupted," says Yeşilgöz about organized crime in the Netherlands. "We can no longer afford naivety."