Customs investigators in Antwerp seized a massive amount of cocaine hidden in a rice shipment at the port there. Over three thousand kilos of cocaine was found, with an estimated street value of 150 million euros.
The drug packages, valued at 150 million euros, were found during a routine search. The shipment was likely destined for the Den Haag region, according to Dutch police. No arrests were made in the case.
"One of the largest" cocaine labs ever found in the Netherlands, was found in a barn in the Zeeland town of Oud-Vossenmeer on Thursday, the police said. The drug lab was discovered thanks to a tree that was blown over by a thunderstorm on Wednesday night.
A cleanup crew was working on cutting up and removing a tree that fell next to Molenweg in Oud-Vossenmeer on Thursday when they started smelling a strange odor. They noticed men walking in and around the barn. They found this suspicious and called the police to investigate.
The murder of four men in an Enschede grow shop last year was a Mexican woman's revenge for the death of her twin brother and 4-year-old daughter, crime reporter Hendrik Jan Korterink said based on information on a USB stick he received from a Russian man and telephone conversations with one of the suspects. The woman's brother and daughter were chopped into pieces and dumped into the Twente canal with over 100 kilograms of heroin and 100 kilograms of cocaine, according to the information, AD reports.
Police dispatched to the scene of a home on Troelstrastraat in Rotterdam found over a dozen guns, some cash, and also a small quantity of drugs and drug paraphernalia on Thursday night. A call to emergency services requesting assistance at the house brought authorities to the scene, and two men took off running when the officers were spotted.
One of the two, a 29-year-old from The Hague, was captured and held by authorities. A 26-year-old man from Rotterdam with minor facial lacerations was also taken into custody when he refused to identify himself, police said.
The Dutch investigative authorities like customs and the police do not work well together in combating drug trafficking in the port of Rotterdam, researchers at Erasmus University concluded after an extensive study commissioned by the Rotterdam municipality, police, customs and Public Prosecutor. Information is not always shared and the authorities mainly focus on so-called "retrievers" of the drugs, which means that the organizers of the drug shipments remain out of reach, the researchers said, NOS reports.
The Public Prosecutor demanded 6.5 years in prison against three men suspected of large-scale drug trafficking through the Hansa Market on the dark web in court on Monday. A female suspect is facing 2 years in prison, eight months of which conditionally suspended.
A 40-year-old Dutch man was arrested in Great Britain last week after 35 kilograms of cocaine was found in his truck. The trucker was arrested in North Lincolnshire on Thursday after he and his truck arrived at the Hull port by ferry, RTL Nieuws reports.
The drugs were hidden in the truck's back doors. According to the local authorities, the cocaine has an estimated street value of around 3 million pounds, nearly 3.5 million euros.
The Dutch truck driver was arraigned and remanded into custody until June 7th, when he again has to appear in court.
On Monday customs officers found a "large batch" of cocaine at the office building of a Rotterdam fruit company on Keilestraat, the Public Prosecutor said in a statement.
The drugs were hidden in a banana shipment from Ecuador, according to the Prosecutor. In a number of pallets full of banana boxes, the fruit was replaced by packages of cocaine. The drugs were confiscated and destroyed.
Customs, the Tax Authority's investigative department FIOD, the seaport police and the Public Prosecutor are investigating. As far as is known, no arrests were made.
A Dutch father and his two sons were arrested in Belgium and Spain over the past weeks for smuggling 3,300 kilograms of cocaine into the Netherlands through the port of Antwerp. The cocaine was seized in a warehouse in Hazeldonk in January 2017. All three suspects have been extradited to the Netherlands and are in custody, the police said in a statement.
The Dutch and Belgian police seized 1,500 kilograms of cocaine at the port of Antwerp on Friday. The cocaine, hidden in a banana shipment, was intended for a company in Kapelle. 14 men were arrested at the company, the police said in a statement.
On Monday a police SWAT team raided the company in Kapelle, after the truck that contained the cocaine arrived there. The arrested suspects are from Rotterdam, Goes, Middelburg, Hansweert, Amsterdam and Berkel-Enschot. Three of them have no permanent place of residence.
Gokmen T., the 37-year-old man suspected of killing three people and injuring five in a shooting on 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht on Monday, has a lengthy criminal record and is considered "scum" among his neighbors. But they don't believe him a terrorist. Relationship problems were behind the shooting, not religion, they told the Volkskrant. Angelique, the victim in a rape case against T., believes the same.
A 55-year-old man and his 17-year-old daughter were injured in a shooting in Amstelveen on Saturday afternoon. The injured man has a criminal record and is suspected of cocaine trafficking and money laundering, according to broadcaster NOS.
The shooting happened at around 12:00 p.m. on Grote Wielen in Westwijk. The two victims were taken to hospital. Both were conscious and able to speak to aid workers. According to the police, they sustained only minor injuries.
There was a striking increase in the use of methamphetamine, more popularly known as crystal meth, in Amsterdam last year, according to the annual study of waste water in European cities by the European Agency for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), the Telegraaf reports.
For the study, the sewage water of various European cities are tested for drug residue. The Dutch cities of Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Utrecht are part of the study.
More investigators and customs officers are needed to combat drug crime in the port of Rotterdam, according to Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb. The Rotterdam mayor calls on the government to structurally tackle undermining crime, NOS reports.
Another two Schiphol employees were arrested in an investigation into large-scale drug trafficking. The two men, aged 33 and 44 from Amsterdam, worked in the baggage, catering and cleaning departments. They were arrested by the Koninklijke Marechaussee on Tuesday, NU.nl reports.
Twelve other arrests were made in this investigation last year. Nine of those suspects worked at Schiphol. The suspects arrested last year have since been released from custody and will appear in court at a later date. The two arrested on Tuesday are in custody.
The police in Oosterhout arrested a 28-year-old man for being in the possession of kilograms of cocaine. The cocaine was found in the man's car after the police confiscated it because the man had an unpaid fine, the police said in a statement.
On Wednesday the police and municipality went to check the man's home due to suspicions of housing fraud and that there was a cannabis plantation there. When they arrived no one answered their knocking, so the police forced the door open. Inside they found the 28-year-old man.
The police found over 13 kilograms of crystal meth and 1.2 kilograms of cocaine in an apartment on Kees Pijlstraat in Rotterdam on Wednesday. A 35-year-old man was arrested.
Officially the apartment is registered as vacant, but patrolling police officers previously noticed signs of someone living there. At the time, no one was home. When the police returned on Wednesday, they found a 35-year-old man who claimed to live in the apartment.
Customs officers in the Netherlands found 70 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside the hold of a ship in Amsterdam harbor. The street value of the seized cocaine is €1.7 million, according to financial crimes investigation service FIOD.
So far, nobody was arrested in connection with the raid. The cargo ship arrived in the Netherlands from Brazil, and was carrying grain.
The packages of cocaine were found on December 16, but authorities only first revealed the bust on Monday. The drugs were later destroyed.
A Dutch soldier was arrested at a night club on Curacao on Saturday night. He was caught with cocaine in his possession. The 24-year-old man was transferred to the Koninklijke Marechaussee, a policing force that works as part of the Dutch military, ANP reports.
The soldier in question worked as a sailor on the ship Zr. MS. Zeeland. The ship arrived in Curacao last week to combat drug trafficking at sea.
The Ministry of Defense has a zero tolerance policy on hard drugs. Soldiers caught with hard drugs face immediate dismissal.
The court in Amsterdam sentenced three men to up to 13 years in prison for large-scale cocaine trafficking. Large batches of cocaine were smuggled out of South America on container ships, thrown overboard at sea, and then fished out by fishing boats from Urk and brought to the Netherlands, NOS reports.
The most severe punishment was imposed on Muhammed S. According to the court, he played a leading role in the smuggling network, which has been trafficking cocaine to the Netherlands since 2015. S. was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
A total of 90 people arrested in a large international action against the Italian mafia clan 'Ndrangheta on Wednesday morning, was announced at a press conference at European judicial cooperation body Eurojust in The Hague. As part of 'Operation Pollino', the police and judiciary in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium raided various locations.
The police arrested a 51-year-old from Schiedam for involvement in the murder of mental health director Rob Zweekhorst in Berkel en Rodenrijs on January 1st, 2014. The arrest is the result of an investigation "that never stopped", the police said, according to NU.nl.
Three porters of the W Amsterdam hotel were arrested for selling drugs to guests at the hotel. They were caught in an undercover police action. The three were dismissed with immediate effect and will appear in court on Friday, AT5 reports.
Former TV presenter Frank Masmeijer, suspected of trafficking cocaine through the port of Antwerp, was arrested in a hotel in Breda on Tuesday. According to Masmeijers' Dutch lawyer, Geert-Jan Knoops, Belgium recently issued an arrest warrant for his client in connection with the drug trafficking case, NU.nl reports.
