Bouterse's drug lines
The origins of the Suri cartel
Episode: 30 minutes
Reading time: 6 minutes

Surinamese President Desi Bouterse was convicted in the Netherlands in 1999 for cocaine smuggling. But Bouterse was already associated with drug smuggling 15 years earlier. In 1986, he was the main target of an undercover operation in Miami. The American justice department then arrested Etienne Boerenveen, Bouterse's right-hand man. Boerenveen tried to set up a drug line from Paramaribo. Bouterse did not come to Miami himself at the last minute. "The main target was Bouterse," says a former undercover agent.

December 2, 2012

Miami Vice in real life
Bent over with his hands cuffed behind his back and his head turned away from the camera, Etienne Boerenveen is led away after his arrest on March 24, 1986. Suriname's second man, Desi Bouterse's right-hand man, has been arrested during an undercover operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on a yacht in Miami. The conversation between Boerenveen, Surinamese businessmen Cilvion and Ricardo Heijmans and DEA agent Kenneth Peterson was recorded with a hidden camera. Peterson still remembers the action well. “It was Miami Vice. Same place, same time, but real.” The video shows that Boerenveen wants to set up a drug line from Suriname to the US. He tells Peterson on the deck and out of camera range that he has all the options that Suriname can offer at his disposal: “It was the only time someone offered me his country,” says Peterson. ?


Hidden camera during undercover action in 1986

Bouterse decides
The soldier Etienne Boerenveen, only 28 years old at the time, did not act on his own. No one within the leadership of Suriname acts without permission from the boss, Desi Bouterse. Major Koen Koenders, who at the time worked for the Military Intelligence Service (MID) in the Netherlands, agrees that, “nothing happens without his approval.” On the deck of the DEA yacht, Boerenveen answers Peterson's question about what he will do with the money: “Part of it goes to me,” as he puts his left hand in his pocket, “and the other part goes to the government,” whereby the right hand disappears into the other pocket.” Bouterse decides.

Koen 1984 in uniform
Major Koen Koenders, at the time working for the Military Intelligence Service (MID)

Suri cartel
The drug trade is an important source of income for Bouterse and his associates. After the December murders of 1982, the flow of money that the Netherlands promised after independence in 1975 was abruptly stopped. The rumors about Suriname as a transit country for Colombian cocaine to Europe and the United States became increasingly persistent among intelligence services after 1982. Military personnel and civilians who flee the country out of fear of Bouterse tell the Dutch immigration services about the activities of the Surinamese army leadership. All these stories are forwarded to the Central Criminal Investigation Information Service (CRI). Information also comes in at that time via an informant. According to Gerrit de Gooyer, head of the Narcotics Center at the CRI from 1985 to 1987, Dick Stotijn (died in 2005) is an informant the likes of which they have never seen since. In 1994, Hans Buddingh and Marcel Haenen, journalists from the NRC, dedicated a book to him. De Danser describes in detail how Stotijn, confined to a wheelchair due to leprosy, receives information about drug deals and transports from all over the world in his hometown Daarlerveen and then shares it with the intelligence services. ?

Gerrit de Gooyer, 1985

End of exercise
The information about the drug trafficking of Pablo Escobar's Medellín cartel is such that the CRI starts an action to arrest a number of Colombians. Stotijn and his runner Anne Post play an important role in this. Stotijn even goes to Aruba to negotiate with the initiators there. But the intelligence also shows that high-ranking Surinamese people are involved in the impending 'deal'; father and son Heijmans and Etienne Boerenveen will participate in the discussions. The head of the CRI's Narcotics Control Center, John Oosterbroek, is feeling short of breath. It is not clear whether the CRI has the authority for such an action, there is insufficient manpower and, above all; politically it is too sensitive. The action is canceled at the last minute. Post quickly recalls Stotijn to protect his identity. Looking back, Anne Post can still get angry. “If we had continued with this action, we would have ultimately ended up with Bouterse. Then Suriname would have looked very different now.”

Etienne Boerenveen

The target was Bouterse
If the Netherlands cannot and does not want to take action, then the Americans should. Anne Post knows that DEA agents work at the embassy in The Hague. Stotijn calls himself and tells officer Dale Laverty what he knows. The latter is amazed by the amount of detailed information and, after initial skepticism, is happy to work with him. Stotijn is now also an informant for the DEA. A new campaign is being set up. This time the Surinamese army leadership is the target.

Contact is made again with Cilvion Heijmans via Stotijn. In February 1986, DEA agent Peterson called Heijmans again from the United States. When asked, Heijmans indicates that he cannot supply cocaine himself, but that Suriname can serve as a transit country. He can do this because he has “connections with the big boss of Suriname”. It is agreed that they will meet, this time in Miami. From that moment on, the DEA is under the assumption that Heijmans will be accompanied by the “big boss of Suriname”. Peterson expects Bouterse himself to come to Miami, but just before the meeting Bouterse cancels. “We were told that it would not be the number one, but his right hand.” Dale Laverty is also certain: “The goal was Bouterse”. But it was Etienne Boerenveen, colonel in the Surinamese army. After an initial meeting in a hotel, during which the listening equipment fails the DEA, the meeting takes place on the hunt and the recordings are successful. After Boerenveen promises Peterson that the cocaine can be transported undisturbed via Suriname, the three Surinamese are arrested.

Dick Stotijn, alias the dancer

Dive headlong into hiding
The trial follows in September 1986. The name of informant Dick Stotijn is leaked through the suspects' lawyers. Miami prosecutor Bill Norris calls the Netherlands to warn. Stotijn has to go into hiding in a hurry. Boerenveen is sentenced to 12 years in prison for complicity in setting up a drug line. Father and son Heijmans receive a much lighter sentence of one year. Five years later, in 1991, Boerenveen is also outside the gate again. The fact that he ultimately only served such a short time raises questions. It is suggested that Boerenveen talked to intelligence services and received a reduced sentence in return. Kenneth Peterson does not know of a deal between Boerenveen and the DEA. As a DEA agent on duty during the undercover operation, he visits Boerenveen in his cell after his arrest. But Boerenveen does not want to talk, according to Peterson. “He was either too proud or too afraid.”

Composition and Direction: Paul Ruigrok
Text and Research: Lizzy van Winsen