Customs authorities intercepted over 2 thousand kilograms of cocaine at the port of Rotterdam in multiple discoveries on Friday and Monday, the Public Prosecutor announced. The drugs were found hidden in shipments of fruit or fruit products from Brazil and Costa Rica.
On Friday, 1,170 kilograms of cocaine were found hidden in a container loaded with mangoes from Brazil. The shipment was destined for a company in Zwaag.
An international crime ring that imported thousands of kilograms of heroin to the Netherlands was broken up this week with the arrests of three people in Amsterdam and Dordrecht. Authorities said the drugs were brought to the capital to then be distributed back out to Germany, the Scandinavian countries, and the United Kingdom.
An investigation into a ship in the Mercuriushaven in Amsterdam uncovered 37 kilograms of cocaine. Authorities estimated the value of the drugs to be €1.8 million, a spokesperson from the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) told NL Times.
The cocaine was found in backpacks on the vessel, which had originated from Brazil. At the time of the investigation, the ship was being used to transport animal feed, FIOD said.
Authorities near Frankfurt, Germany arrested a Dutch driver after finding 50 thousand ecstasy tablets in his car worth over 350 thousand euros. He was remanded into custody by a magistrate, German police said in a statement issued on Friday.
The arrest happened during a routine patrol of the traffic routes into the Frankfurt area on February 12. Customs inspectors monitoring the area ordered the driver of a Volkswagen Up with Dutch license plates to pull over near a petrol station on Autobahn 3 in Medenbach.
The largest drug bust in Costa Rica’s history involved over five thousand kilograms of cocaine destined for The Netherlands. The drugs were found on Saturday, hidden amongst a shipment of canopy plants being sent to Rotterdam, according to the country’s Ministry of Public Security.
The Spanish police arrested an alleged Dutch criminal organization for drug trafficking in Alicante. Four Dutch men between the ages of 44 and 56 were arrested for possessing more than 100 kilograms of cannabis, 550 cannabis plants, a firearm and large sums of money, RTL Nieuws reports based on reports in Spanish media.
Customs officers found approximately 1 thousand kilograms of cocaine during a check at the port of Rotterdam on Friday, February 7th. The drugs were hidden in a container loaded with bananas from Ecuador, the Public Prosecution Service said on Wednesday.
The cargo arrived at the port of Rotterdam early last week on a ship from Costa Rica. The bananas were destined for a company in Portugal. The Dutch authorities does not believe the Portuguese company had anything to do with the drug trafficking.
The drugs were confiscated and destroyed.
The police found over a kilogram of fentanyl in a shed in Eindhoven on February 3rd. "As far as is known, such a large amount of this extremely dangerous substance has never before been seized in the Netherlands," the Public Prosecutor announced on Tuesday.
Three Martinair pilots who were arrested in Argentina after a large amount of cocaine was found in their plane, have returned to the Netherlands. Last week the Argentinian judiciary announced that there was no reason to prosecute the pilots, but they had to stay in the country for several more days while all the formalities were settled, NOS reports.
Roelf B., a Dutch athlete in custody in Hungary for drug trafficking after he was caught selling drugs at a festival there, expressed regret for his actions. He said that he only sold the drugs because he wanted to help his childhood friend Gert-Jan N., a second Dutch man in custody for drug trafficking, the Volkskrant reports based on a statement B. gave to the Hungarian Public Prosecution Service.
Police arrested a third man connected to a shooting in Utrecht, where local residents said the perpetrator was dressed up like Zwarte Piet. The arrest in the 2018 case was announced on Tuesday. He is a 48-year-old man with no fixed address.
Two people were arrested in the case last June. Neither was believed to be the shooter, police said in July when they released images of the man they said was at large.
A large quantity of heroin was found hidden on board a ship in Rotterdam just before the end of the year, authorities at the port said. Police and Customs officers discovered some 439 kilograms of the narcotic hidden below a shipment of talc stone during a routine check.
The cargo was still inside a sea container on the ship when it was inspected, police said. Authorities seized and destroyed and destroyed the drugs.
No arrests were announced in the case, police disclosed on Friday. The investigation is still ongoing.
Customs officers at the port of Vlissingen intercepted 921 kilograms of cocaine on Tuesday. The drugs were hidden in a container of bananas that came from Ecuador, the police said in a statement.
The drugs were discovered with a mobile scan. The police seized and destroyed the cocaine. So far no arrests were made.
The police are investigating.
More than 80 kilograms of cocaine was found on a Martinair Cargo plane in Argentina. Seven men, three of whom are Dutch, were arrested, including the plane's pilot and some crew members, RTL Nieuws reports.
The plane was at the Ezeiza International Airport near Buenos Aires when the drugs were discovered. Local media report that the discovery was made shortly before he plane was set to depart for Amsterdam, via Ecuador and Miami.
The police registered a total of 21,302 trafficking related crimes in 2019, an increase of over 16 percent compared to the year before. The increase was mainly due to a spike in weapons trafficking and drug trafficking, according to an initial analysis of crime statistics released on Wednesday.
A hand grenade was found at an apartment building in Kerkdriel, where the mayor of the municipality of Maasdriel lives, on Monday morning. Dozens of local residents were evacuated as explosive experts disarmed the device, local safety office Veiligheidsregio Gelderland-Zuid said on Twitter.
The explosive was found just before 5:30 a.m. At 11:00 a.m., the safety office announced that the device had been disarmed and no longer posed a danger to the surroundings. Gasthuisplein an Monseigneur Zwijsenplein were cordoned off for investigation.
Neighbors in the Kamperpoort neighborhood of Zwolle painted a grim picture of Henk W., a man found shot and killed there on New Year's Eve. One resident, Wietze, who knew the victim told RTV Oost he was "not known to be a sweetheart" and that she always suspected something like this would happen to him.
Another said it was "a relief" that he was gone.
Customs officials in and around Rotterdam found a total of 775 kilograms of cocaine in three separate investigations. The busts all took place between Friday and Sunday, with authorities taking seven people into custody.
Customs officers intercepted a large amount of cocaine during a check at the port of Rotterdam on Monday. The drugs were hidden in around 40 barrels of frozen fruit pulp, the Public Prosecutor said on Wednesday.
The container with the drugs came from Brazil. The cocaine was removed and destroyed.
The HARC team, a joint venture of Customs, FIOD, Seaport Police, and the Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam, is investigating.
Four separate shipments of cocaine were found by Customs officials at the Port of Rotterdam over the past week. All told, officials captured 1,457 kilograms of cocaine, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) said.
All of the cocaine made its way to the Netherlands from Brazil. The drugs were later destroyed, the OM said.
It started on December 12 when Customs officers found 450 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a shipment of grit used in the concrete industry. Another 500 kilograms of the drug was found frozen inside barrels of concentrated fruit pulp.
Authorities working at the port in Vlissingen discovered roughly 1,200 kilograms of cocaine. The drugs were discovered hidden in a banana shipment that was delivered to a company based at the port, police said.
A criminal investigation was launched after the contraband was found on Tuesday afternoon. No arrests were announced in the case. “The drugs have since been removed and destroyed,” police said.
Banana shipments have been a frequent cover for cocaine traffickers in the Netherlands this year.
Police in Spain are looking for a 29-year-old Dutch man in connection with the fatal shooting of a French man in Cabopino, Marbella. The man in his 60's was gunned down on the street at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday when he was walking to his car, according to local newspaper Diario Sur.
The newspaper said the Dutch suspect, an alleged contract killer, is well known by police in the area, and should be considered “very dangerous.” He was described as being 1.80-meters tall, thin, and having a beard. There was no description of the second suspect involved in the shooting.
Employees of a fruit company in Ridderkerk found a large batch of cocaine hidden among melons in a shipment the company received from Brazil on Monday, the Public Prosecutor said.
A total of 330 kilograms of cocaine were hidden in the container, according to RTL Nieuws. The container came from Brazil and was delivered to the port of Rotterdam before being moved to the company in Ridderkerk.
The fruit company employees called the police the moment they found the drugs. The Public Prosecutor does not believe the company was involved in the drug trafficking.
Traders in illegal fireworks are increasingly making use of drug routes to bring their products into the Netherlands, according to the police. The bigger chance of fireworks sent by mail being intercepted, means that these traders are looking for other ways to distribute illegal fireworks, the police said, NOS reports.
