Taghi’s son gets six years for drug trafficking, plotting father’s escape

Faissal Taghi, 25, the eldest son of convicted drug lord Ridouan Taghi, was sentenced to six years in prison Monday for participating in a criminal organization involved in international drug trafficking, money laundering, and planning a violent attempt to free his father from the Maximum-Security Prison (EBI) in Vught. The sentence follows procedural agreements he made with prosecutors.

The court in Zwolle found that Taghi played a key role in continuing his father’s criminal operations after Ridouan Taghi was arrested in Dubai at the end of 2019.

Faissal, then 19, was reportedly groomed by his father’s associates to manage the organization from abroad while studying Money, Banking, and Finance in Dubai. Dennis G., also known as “Rasta,” trained him in handling large shipments of cocaine and hashish and in laundering criminal proceeds.

Court documents and decrypted messages presented during the trial show Faissal Taghi coordinating shipments of cocaine from Paranaguá, Brazil, to European ports including Antwerp, Le Havre, and Valencia. Authorities estimate the organization moved roughly 1,500 kilograms of cocaine.

The messages also reportedly detail large-scale hashish trafficking and laundering of “enormous amounts of criminal money,” sometimes through intermediaries referred to as “papmen” (“pap” being street slang for money).

Taghi also exchanged messages with his father via lawyer Inez Weski, discussing the continuation of the drug business and plans for a violent prison break. The court noted that the conspirators “seriously considered” kidnapping or extorting four EBI staff members as part of the plan.

Faissal Taghi kept extensive digital records of the criminal activity. His attorneys, Ronald van der Horst and Anique Slijters, negotiated procedural agreements with the Public Prosecution Service to expedite the trial. The agreements included a reduced sentence and the decision not to pursue confiscation of his criminal profits, a choice the court called “remarkable” given the principle that crime must not pay.

The court described Faissal more as an “intermediary” than a leader, noting that his associates “took him under their wings to train him in the trade” and acknowledging the difficulty of distancing himself from his father and others. In messages to Ridouan Taghi, Faissal promised to make his father “supertrots” and to manage financial and logistical operations, including safe houses and passports, to build a “worldwide empire.”