‘It is a company without a license, nothing more, nothing less.’ This is the telling statement of one of the 16 suspects of synthetic drug trade from a mega trial starting on Tuesday, March 11, at the court in Den Bosch. According to the public prosecutor of the National Prosecutors Office, this investigation is a ‘textbook example’ of how drug criminals operate today.
The case began in 2022 after the dismantling of the cryptoplatform ANOM, bringing most suspects into the picture. The detailed chats reveal a disillusioning image of how southern criminals strive to collaborate in a business-like manner. They are fluid networks using freelancers in various roles. The sixteen suspects in this case confirm that image: they are leaders, investors, drivers, and drug cooks. The case centers on three large drug labs discovered in 2021 in Heerlen, Sint-Oedenrode, and Dinteloord, where hundreds of liters of amphetamine, as well as thousands of liters of drug waste, were produced.
Borrowing Personnel
The criminal networks that have emerged are illustrative of how criminal contacts operate among them. Southern criminals collaborate, advise each other, assist in building new labs, and even exchange ‘personnel’. This dossier makes it clear that one organization sends a cook to Limburg to help another cook with problems in the production of amphetamine.
Well-Oiled Machine
In the decrypted chats, the suspects literally talk about ‘sales team’, ‘supply/pickup team’, and ‘kitchen team’, but also ‘waste team’, ‘sales team’, and ‘raw materials team’. One of them says: ‘I want a well-oiled machine and every week 600 to 1000 liters of amphetamine should just be possible’. The dossier shows that if a crucial link in the network fails, it is immediately replaced by another. And if a lab location becomes ‘too hot’, they just continue at another location.
Project-Based Approach
The interwoven networks require a different, more project-based approach from the police and the Public Prosecution Service. They are therefore no longer focusing solely on taking down the key figures within a network, but rather on tackling the networks as a whole. The goal is to disrupt the criminal enterprise in its entirety.
For the mega trial scheduled for March 11 at the court in Den Bosch, several days have been set aside. The sentences for the suspects are expected on Thursday.