A couple arrested in Haarlem at the end of 2023 is being charged with large-scale human smuggling, drug trafficking, and laundering millions of euros. The suspects company provided half of all seized rubber boats used by migrants trying to cross the Channel to Great Britain in just over a year. The Public Prosecution Service demands prison sentences of 12 years against them, as revealed in the Overijssel court on Tuesday.
On the purchase invoices of the company, there are 1018 boats, 916 outboard motors, 41,163 life jackets, and 97 pumps. The sales invoices show 1489 boats, 1521 outboard motors, 53,916 life jackets, and 64 pumps. The scale is enormous: from January 2022 to October 2023, the trading company was involved in 216 shipments of nautical goods. The (incomplete) business administration speaks volumes; this is a trade suited for one purpose only: human smuggling. The prosecutor of the National Prosecutors Office:
The images of dozens of people trying to cross one of the busiest shipping routes in the world in an (overloaded) rubber boat with an outboard motor are well known. That this method of crossing the Channel is life-threatening is evident from the many victims who perish. The boats used for this purpose are unsuitable and poorly visible to the large vessels sailing there. For the smugglers, the misery of these refugees is a business model; a human life is worthless.
Looking at the number of seized boats indicates that the company supplied about half of all the boats used or meant to be used for the crossing over the Channel during this period. In the investigation into human smuggling, the Public Prosecution Service worked together with the Royal Military Police, Europol, France, Belgium, Germany, and the UK.
Third Suspect
The 43-year-old owner of the Haarlem company had direct contact with the suppliers and buyers of the nautical goods. His wife, also 43, handled the administrative side of the trade. At a later stage in the investigation, a third suspect, a 34-year-old employee of the company, was arrested. He is facing three years in prison, of which 6 months are conditional. He is suspected of drug trafficking and laundering.
During the investigation, it became clear that the business model was not only in the trade of nautical goods but also in cocaine. Furthermore, it was revealed that suspects drove large sums of money in cars with hidden compartments from the Netherlands to Romania and Turkey.
Cocaine in Double Wall
The couple is suspected of involvement in three transports or intended transports in 2023 of cocaine from Colombia, and the 34-year-old employee is involved in two transports. The drugs were ingeniously hidden behind a double (back) wall in shipping containers carrying soft drinks, with their company as the final destination. That the soft drinks were merely a cover, not the regular trade, is evident from recorded conversations.
For example, the main suspect states that he resells it at a loss. In the same conversation, he says he has now been offered potatoes to “transport it.” A new cover, therefore. Additionally, suspects become disproportionately nervous when a shipment is delayed. They speak of signals that need to turn green and parties that need to be released. They also talk about kilos, a double wall, cutting goods, getting containers scanned-free, and about coke and the drug world from which you cannot just exit once youre in.
Hidden Compartment with Magnet
Besides the trade in drugs and goods for human smuggling, the suspects also earned money by moving criminal money for others. All three suspects have, according to the Public Prosecution Service, committed money laundering. The couple laundered around 4 million euros, and the 34-year-old suspect half of that, as revealed by the investigation.
Stacks of cash were sent from the company in cars with hidden compartments driving from the Netherlands to Romania and Turkey. Various photos and videos found on a phone show that the female suspect is busy counting and sorting all the money. It is then packed into an Audi A6 or Volkswagen Passat. Both cars have a hidden compartment that can be opened with a magnet. Among others, the two male suspects drive themselves and deliver the money to an as yet unknown party, after showing a token. To avoid drawing police attention, they drive, among other things, in a car with a Bulgarian license plate. They pose as businessmen by carrying a briefcase and a laptop.
In chat groups on a phone, large quantities of screenshots of what is presumably an underground banking administration are found, worth about 29 million euros. Seven transactions are now being charged against the couple, amounting to 4 million for them and 2 million for the 34-year-old suspect. The prosecutor:
Money laundering of criminal proceeds is a form of undermining crime that poses a threat to the integrity of financial and economic traffic. It also enables or facilitates various other forms of serious crime.
The trial continues Wednesday with the lawyers pleas.