An investigation into the discovery of cocaine hidden in a flower shipment in January led to a much larger drug bust in April. Ten people were taken into custody who worked for a logistics firm at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam after 160 kilograms of cocaine was found in another flower shipment.
It was not revealed when the arrests took place, but eight of the suspects were still in custody on Thursday.
The police in Maastricht are searching for a student who jumped from the Wilhelminabrug into the Maas with a second student on Friday morning. One student made it to shore, the other is still missing, the police said to the Telegraaf.
The two jumped off the bridge at around 8:15 a.m., according to eye witnesses who called the police. One of the students made it to shore a short time later, but the other disappeared under water. The police are looking for the second student with all their might. Ships in the area have also been informed.
Thijs H., the man suspected of killing three people in dog walking areas in The Hague and Heerlen this week, sought help from the Maastricht psychiatric clinic Mondriaan after stabbing two people to death in Heerlen, the Telegraaf reports based on sources close to the investigation.
Thijs H., the man suspected of fatally stabbing three people while they were walking their dogs in The Hague and Heerlen, is or was being treated by the Mondriaan psychiatric institution in Maastricht, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor said on Thursday. The 27-year-old man from The Hague will be arraigned next week, the Prosecutor said.
Four people were hurt in a stabbing incident at a care facility in Maastricht on Wednesday. The suspect, one of the location's clients, was also injured in the morning violence, police said in a statement.
An employee of the care center on Vijverdalseweg and the suspect were taken to an area hospital. The other three victims were treated at the scene.
The incident was first reported to authorities at about 5:50 a.m. The motive was still under investigation four hours later.
A stabbing at a mental health institute in Maastricht left multiple people injured on Wednesday morning. The victims are one patient and multiple GGZ employees, according to 1Limburg.
Emergency services responded to the clinic on Vijverdalseweg at around 6:20 a.m.
A police spokesperson could not tell 1Limburg anything about the severity of the victims' injuries, or the motive for the stabbing.
A police officer was run over by a fleeing motorist in Maastricht during the early hours of Sunday morning. The officer was treated in hospital for multiple bruises before being sent home to recover. The motorist, a 31-year-old man from Maastricht, was arrested, the police said in a statement.
The police wanted to pull the motorist over for a traffic check on Koningin Emmaplein at around 3:45 a.m. The motorist ignored the signal to pull over and sped away. The police gave chase.
A group of around 30 people jumped out of a truck on the A2 highway near Gronsveld in Limburg on Thursday morning. They then fled on foot into the Maastricht neighborhoods, the police said.
The people jumped out of the truck at around 8:45 a.m. The group consists of adults and children, a police spokesperson said to NU.nl. A number of them are barefoot. At this stage the police assume the people are undocumented migrants, according to the newspaper. "In any case, they don't seem to come from the Netherlands", the police spokesperson said.
The police are investigating a fire in a hotel on Lage Barakken in Maastricht on Saturday morning. A 51-year-old woman from Brazil died in the fire, the police said in a statement.
The investigation is focused on the cause of the fire. An extensive forensic investigation was done at the scene. The police are also investigating exactly what caused the woman's death.
An autopsy will be done on her body on Tuesday.
An unoccupied home in Heer, the Moluccan district in Maastricht, was vandalized. "This is the Moluccan neighborhood. Only for Moluccans", was written on the home's window, and eggs were thrown against the facade, 1Limburg reports.
Part of Maastricht's historic city wall collapsed along the Sint Pieterskade on Saturday night. The few meters high city wall collapsed over a width of 6 meters. The cause is not yet clear. Maastricht plans to quickly rebuild the estimated five-century-old wall, responsible alderman Gert-Jan Krabbendam said on Sunday, NU.nl reports.
National railway NS fears that an early morning strike by its employees on Monday will cause “major hindrance” to train traffic all day. The timetable will be disrupted all day long if no trains run before 7:06 a.m., according to the rail company.
Amsterdam is still the city in the Netherlands with the highest crime figures, according to newspaper AD's annual crime monitor Misdaadmeter. Neighboring municipality Diemen is catching up to the Dutch capital, moving from the 26th most unsafe municipality in 2017 to the 8th last year. Limburg counts four municipalities in the top 10 least safe, AD reports.
The municipality of Maastricht hired a detective agency to read the emails of three critical officials and question them. This happened after the leak of a report on a meeting about a joint service office for Maastricht, Heerlen and Sittard-Geleen. The report referred to the possible dismissal of the critical officials, AD reports.
There were over 1,635 kilometers of traffic jams across the Netherlands at 5:05 p.m. on Tuesday, just as the evening rush hour got underway, according to travel association ANWB. A snow storm that started on the west coast in the morning was slowly making its way east, and was still expected to hover over the provinces of Friesland, Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel, Gelderland, Limburg, and parts of Flevoland and Noord-Brabant past 6 p.m.
A Dutch truck driver suspected of killing a Belgian yellow vest protester in a hit-and-run on Friday, will turn himself in to the Belgian authorities on Tuesday, his lawyer said. According to the Public Prosecutor in Liege, the suspect lives in Landgraaf, Limburg, but the lawyer refused to confirm this, NU.nl reports.
A 'yellow vest' protester was killed in a hit-and-run during a highway blockade on the E25 highway near Visé, just across the border with the Netherlands, on Friday. The 50-year-old man was hit by a truck, which then fled the scene. A 56-year-old man from Dongen in Noord-Brabant was arrested on Saturday, the Public Prosecutor in Liege, Belgium confirmed, NOS reports.
Jewelry thieves made off with 1.3 million euros of luxury watches in a brazen smash-and-grab robbery in the center of Maastricht Wednesday night. Two burglars made off with 150 watches from the Juwelier Burger on Platielstraat, and were apparently at large.
A video was posted on Facebook claiming to show the end of the burglary. Two people are scene climbing down a ladder at the scene of the crime, and then fleeing on bicycles.
https://www.facebook.com/mart.smeets.3/videos/2210326662345335/
A Yellow Vests protest in Belgium briefly blocked that country's traffic from crossing the border into the Dutch city of Maastricht on Wednesday night. The blockade on the E25 highway in Voeren, Belgium, was just a few hundred meters away from the border point.
Dutch authorities assisted their Belgian counterparts in controlling the protest.
About 20 Yellow Vest demonstrators were involved. They allegedly set a fire using pallets and rubber tires, according to L1.
A Dutch pre-teen is winning high praise around the Netherlands for racing around the country to play the piano in a fundraising effort. Bas Schipper set a record by playing all the pianos located at 16 different train stations in 18 hours and 10 minutes, breaking the previous record set by Ernesto Dennis by 75 minutes.
In doing so, he managed to raise €61,835 for diabetes research, as of Monday afternoon. The total far exceeded the goal the boy set.
A family from Maastricht became unwell due to a carbon monoxide leak in their home on Eyckeroed. The two adults and three children were all admitted to hospital with carbon monoxide poisoning, NOS reports.
The source of the carbon monoxide leak is not yet known. The fire department reports that all five victims are still in hospital, but in a stable condition.
The family's home was ventilated and the police are now investigating the cause.
While "yellow vests" protests resulted in 500 arrests in Paris and 400 in Brussels, the protests in the Netherlands were much quieter. The largest protests only had around 200 participants, and only three people were arrested in Amsterdam, RTL Nieuws reports.
The police arrested a "Yellow Vests" activist in Maastricht on Thursday for incitement. The detainee is the same man who was arrested for disrupting public order during a Yellow Vests demonstration in Maastricht on Saturday, the police confirmed to NU.nl.
A spokesperson for the Yellow Vests told the newspaper the the police are trying to get the genie back in the bottle with this arrest. According to him, the arrested activist has always been peaceful.
Protest movement "yellow vests" announced a protest march in Amsterdam on Saturday. Protesters will gather at the Stopera at 11:30 a.m. and then march along the Amstel and around the city hall. The protest was reported to the municipality, a spokesperson for Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema said to Het Parool.
