On July 18, 2023, the police raided a home in Haarlemmermeer and a holiday residence in Eemnes. Several firearms and ammunition were found, along with six money counting machines. In Noordwijk, the police also discovered a cocaine washing facility under construction that day. Based on decrypted communications, it was revealed that a now 53-year-old man from Haarlemmermeer had traded many hundreds of kilograms of cocaine between 2020 and 2021, among other things hidden in plaster and paint. The prosecution demanded ten years of imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms and (preparing for) large-scale cocaine trafficking, and sought confiscation of the unlawfully obtained benefits amounting to over €800,000.
Gunfire
In the suspects holiday home in Eemnes, the police found a loaded Glock in a hidden shopping bag on July 18, 2023. And in his home in Haarlemmermeer, the police found five more firearms that day, along with ammunition and a silencer designed for assault weapons. The willingness to engage in gunfire was confirmed in decrypted chats: on February 28, 2021, the suspect purchased a pistol in Haarlem. When his contact expressed concern, because you dont just ask for a firearm, do you?!, the suspect responded that he was going to sink his teeth into someone because that person was asking too much of him and he was getting a bit crazy about it. The prosecutor stated: This readiness for violence on the part of the suspect must have everything to do with his self-chosen profession: being a cocaine importer, chemist/washman, and block maker of a very heavy caliber. And tall trees catch a lot of wind.
Ingeniously Hidden Cocaine
In May, June, and July 2020, the suspect reportedly washed about 1,600 kilograms of cocaine out of lime or plaster. In 800 bags of 25 kilograms of lime or plaster, two kilograms of cocaine were hidden each time. The suspect also chatted from late February 2021 about extracting cocaine from paint on paintings. According to him, the washing of the cocaine could yield more if he optimized the process. This possibly explains why the police found a cocaine washing facility in Noordwijk on the action day in 2023. A specialized police team examined the space and concluded based on, among other things, found chemicals and a ventilation shaft, that the warehouse was set up as a production location for processing and/or refining cocaine.
Specific Process
In source countries, cocaine is washed through chemical processes in products, to later extract it again in the Netherlands. This way, the cocaine is not visible on customs scans and often cannot be detected by sniffer dogs either. To wash it out again, a specific chemical recipe and extensive knowledge are required; otherwise, a lot of cocaine is lost. A cocaine washing facility is thus run by specialists. This method has the advantage that, besides the lower risk of detection, no port or customs personnel need to be bribed. Also, fewer people have knowledge of the transport, reducing the risk of theft (ripping).
Importer
Sometimes the cocaine was less cleverly concealed, involving straightforward trade, for example, in fifteen blocks of one kilogram of cocaine. The prosecution also accuses the suspect of having fulfilled a very different role in the cocaine chain. The prosecutor stated: Not that of a washing laborer, not that of a seller, but that of a buyer and international importer. From the chat traffic, it appeared that starting in February 2020, the suspect communicated in English and Spanish to get two boxes containing 20 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia to the Netherlands by air freight. A year later, 16 kilograms of cocaine were ready, concealed in a load of chocolate, to be transported to the Netherlands by cargo plane. However, that shipment was intercepted by customs at the airport in Bogota.
Skilled Suspect
It concerns hardened crime over a longer period. A very experienced and skilled criminal who looks further ahead than most of his peers and has simply never been caught before, said the prosecutor. The way the suspect shielded his communication says something about his caliber. A specialized search team could not find invisible doors in his business space - by knocking and pushing on walls - that led to hidden spaces and a kind of ICT lab filled with more than a hundred phones. In that space, there was also a running server and forensic equipment. The prosecution emphasizes this once again to make it clear that we are talking about an extremely skilled and ambitious suspect. The prosecutor demands an unconditional prison sentence of ten years and confiscation of the criminal assets amounting to over €800,000.