Teen boys caught with explosive in Rotterdam under investigation for earlier incidents

Police on Thursday said the two people caught red-handed with an explosive device in Rotterdam are both juvenile boys. The suspects, Rotterdam boys aged 14 and 15, were taken into custody earlier in the day. The two teenagers caught on Thursday will also be investigated for any links to previous crimes.

Rotterdam has had around 50 incidents of explosives detonated at homes and apartment buildings this year. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb said last month that he believed the attacks to be drug-related. He said the authorities are now intercepting about 60 percent of the cocaine trafficked through the port of Rotterdam, and that drug criminals blame each other and try to intimidate each other with attacks when a shipment is captured.

“A new explosion in the Van Speykstraat was prevented on Thursday morning by police officers who observed a suspicious situation on live camera images. At 3:20 a.m., they saw two people acting suspiciously at a house on Van Speykstraat. Officers who rushed into arrested the boys. An explosive device was found in front of the building,” police said in a statement.

The street has been the scene of several violent incidents just in the past week. Early on Tuesday morning, an explosive was detonated at the entrance of an apartment building. Then, on Wednesday morning, over a dozen gunshots were fired at the apartment building next door.

On Wednesday evening, the police arrested a 32-year-old man with no fixed address for suspected involvement in previous explosions at apartment buildings earlier this week. One of those also happened on Van Speykstraat, and the other happened on Crooswijkseweg.

Police said they are investigating all of the incidents that took place, and “are also working hard to prevent new incidents.”