Murders, attacks and beheading: the bloody war between coke traffickers in the Netherlands
It was a hit thunder in the sky, gray but generally so quiet, of the Netherlands: on September 18, Derk Wiersum fell under the bullets of a killer in Amsterdam. He was the lawyer for Nabil B., a repentant whose brother was previously murdered in 2018, and the key witness in a drug trafficking case. One of those – many – that have plagued the life of the kingdom since April 2012, and the time of the first liquidations and what has been called the “Mocro War”, a ruthless cocaine war launched by networks of ‘Moroccan origin. It would have claimed, so far, a hundred victims all over Europe.
It has been enamelled with a beheading in front of a hookah bar in Amsterdam, attacks against a magazine and a daily, threats against investigative journalists forced to go into hiding or to be constantly protected.
And, as a crowning achievement, the assassination of the renowned lawyer that was M e Wiersum . Suffice to say that the kingdom which, for a long time was preserved from terrorism, is in shock. He now discovers a drug war phenomenon.
“All the Netherlands are afraid”
M e Wiersum had refused all police protection, but today ‘ hui, some of his colleagues and magistrates, possible targets, are closely watched. “We have deliberately, strategically, liquidated an actor in the justice system and all the Netherlands are afraid” , explained Mick van Wely, a journalist specializing in crime at De Telegraaf. He explains having interviewed an Italian anti-mafia judge who, even accustomed to the worst, said he was “shocked” by what was happening in the Netherlands.
In the heart of this war, a 42-year-old man, Redouane Taghi, is suspected of having ordered five assassinations – six other attempts failed. Nabil B. would be able to prove that the head of the network, on the run with his main lieutenant, actually had more murders to his credit.
After organizing hashish trafficking from Morocco, Taghi would have established contacts with South American cartels and set up, from Panama, a channel for transporting cocaine to the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp (Belgium), the main gateways to the European market and bases for ‘traffic that has become global. In 2018, Rotterdam seized 19 tons of cocaine while Belgian customs intercepted 50 tons, confirming that the Flemish city, where liquidations and grenade attacks have increased in recent months, is another field of action for criminal gangs.