Bolle Jos's Father could face 7 months in prison for laundering €110,000 watch
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) recommended 7 months in prison against Joseph Leijdekkers (71), the father of well-known fugitive drug trafficker Jos Leijdekkers, known as Bolle Jos, for money laundering. According to the OM, Leijdekkers senior received a €110,000 Patek Philippe watch, bought with his son’s drug profits.
In a separate drug-related case linked to the Netherlands, the presence of Dutch suspects on a drug trafficking boat intercepted by Spain this weekend has been confirmed, RTL Nieuws reported. A spokesperson for the largest police union in the country said that the boat contained €3.5 billion worth of cocaine.
Bolle Jos’s mother and sister are also suspected of money laundering, but the case against them was postponed on Wednesday.
In January 2023, the authorities raided the homes and offices of Bolle Jos’s parents and sister, aimed at finding clues to the drug trafficker’s whereabouts. During these raids, investigators seized “numerous valuable items” and money, the OM said, including luxury watches, jewelry, expensive handbags, and tens of thousands of euros in cash. The searches led to separate money laundering suspicions against Jos Leijdekker’s family members.
The authorities found a rose gold Patek Philippe men’s watch with a value of €110,000 in Joseph Leijdekker’s home. “Based on the investigation, the OM assumes the man received the timepiece from his son, Jos Leijdekkers, while he was well aware that the watch had been paid for with criminal proceeds,” the OM said.
The evidence that Bolle Jos bought the watch for his father includes message exchanges between him and an Antwerp jeweller in which the drug trafficker said “that Pathek rose leather is for dad” and “that 5980 rose on leather for dad.” The seized watch is an 18-karat rose gold watch by the brand Patek Philippe with a leather strap and model number 5980.
The authorities also found a valuable ladies' watch in Joseph Leijdekkers’ home. The OM recommended that Leijdekkers senior be acquitted of laundering this watch due to insufficient evidence.
The prosecutor said that Joseph Leijdekkers undoubtedly suffers “adverse effects” of the investigation into his son. “But that does not detract from the criminal offense he himself is accused of. The suspect has never distanced himself from the gift he received,” the prosecutor said in court. “By accepting and using an expensive watch that was in all likelihood purchased with money derived from drug trafficking, you personally profit from the proceeds of criminal offenses.”
The OM recommended a slightly shorter sentence because of the defendant’s advanced age and the duration of this case.
Joseph Leijdekkers denied having received the watch from his son. His lawyer also argued that, if he did receive the watch from his son, he could not have known that the watch was purchased with criminal money. “He thought his son was a successful businessman in Dubai.”
Drug trafficking boat intercepted by Spain
Spain intercepted the drug trafficking boat near the Canary Islands this weekend. Dutch nationals were among those arrested, spokesperson Diego Madrazo for the police union AUGC told RTL Nieuws.
Initial reports estimated the amount of drugs on the ship to be between 30,000 and 45,000 kilograms. But it now looks likely to be around 50,000 kilograms, with a street value of €3 billion to €3.5 billion, Madrazo said. The Spanish police are still in the process of weighing the cargo.
For comparison, the largest cocaine seizure ever in the Netherlands was on July 13, 2023. The police found 8,064 kilograms of cocaine in a container of bananas in the port of Rotterdam. The drugs were worth around €600 million. This weekend’s seizure near the Canary Islands is five to six times larger.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernand Marlaska spoke of “a record seizure, not only for Spain, but also internationally.”
