Her Ex-husband for 20 years Erik van Toorenburg a real estate dealer made a huge fortune by buying up properties, splitting them up and selling them on. In a short period of time, he bought 130 million worth of real estate and sold it for many more bucks. Nevertheless, Van Toorenburg came to the attention of the authorities. He was suspected of all kinds of shady business and was said to be running a far from decent real estate company. Before he had to appear in court, he fled abroad in 2007. "He is reportedly in Thailand," Het Parool wrote in 2017.

'Dutch hitman (15) seriously injured after attack on Chechen mafia leader in Hamburg'

Two people were injured in a shooting at a Turkish restaurant in Hamburg on January 12. It is said to be a 15-year-old masked hitman from the Netherlands and the target, a 49-year-old man who is probably a high-ranking member of the Chechen mafia. This is reported by various German media.

The underage gunman entered the restaurant on Steindamm in the St. Georg district around 10:45 p.m. on Sunday evening, January 12, wearing a mask and shooting a 49-year-old man, who is believed to be a leader of the Chechen mafia. The victim was injured in his legs.

Chased
After the shooting, the 15-year-old boy fled in the direction of Hansaplatz, where he was allegedly chased by six men from the vicinity of the shot victim. According to eyewitnesses, the teenager was chased into an Italian restaurant, knocked down and shot in the legs. The teenager was then allegedly kicked by the men.

Arrests
In addition to the shot Chechen, German police have arrested two other suspects, aged 32 and 52. Four other suspects, aged 18 to 22, are reportedly being investigated. They have not yet been arrested. The 15-year-old shooter was also arrested on the spot and is in custody, along with the other three suspects.

Conflict between Dutch and Chechen criminals
The police assume a conflict between a group of Dutch and Chechen criminals, in which the underage shooter was recruited for the attack. According to sources, the Dutch teenager was previously involved in two violent crimes in North Rhine-Westphalia, in one of which firearms were also used.

Forced prostitution
According to German media, the background of the shooting could be a conflict over forced prostitution and human trafficking. The Chechen group would try to gain control over Bulgarian street prostitutes in Hamburg.

The German National Criminal Investigation Department has taken up the investigation. The police are looking for witnesses who know more.

https://www.crimesite.nl/nederlands...-kopstuk-tsjetsjeense-maffia-in-hamburg/

Taghi's lawyers' request for recusal rejected, Marengo trial can continue
The request for disqualification from Ridouan Taghi's lawyers was rejected on Friday. There will therefore be no new judges in the appeal against the main suspect in the Marengo trial. The disqualification chamber ruled that there were no grounds for the disqualification.

Vito Shukrula and Carlo Crince le Roy, Taghi's new lawyers, had challenged the Amsterdam court of appeal because they felt that the judges had given the impression of bias. They asked for sixteen months of preparation time to study the 80,000-page file, but the challenge chamber did not give them that time.

Extensive
According to the court, the case is extensive and the new defense is expected to do a lot, but the case is not very complicated. The lawyers previously warned that they would drop the defense if they were given less time. Whether they will do so now is still unclear.

There will be a new hearing in the case on February 5. The substantive hearing of the appeal is scheduled for the end of 2025.

Bolle Jos is hiding in Sierra Leone according to National Police, he is said to be close to the President of the country.

Jos during a church service in Sierra Leone
According to an outspoken politician, Bolle Jos would bribe high officials in the West African country. He would also have a relationship with the president's daughter, the newspaper reports . That daughter can be seen next to the drug criminal in the images.

https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws...le-jos-houdt-zich-schuil-in-sierra-leone

Sierra Leone investigating reports Dutch drug kingpin took refuge in country

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vo...gpin-took-refuge-in-country/7951251.html

A new video has surfaced of fugitive “Bolle Jos” Leijdekkers, seen during a brawl at a nightclub in Sierra Leone. The video was taken during New Year’s Eve 2022-2023, following a shooting that left a man seriously injured.

The video shows Bolle Jos during a riot in a nightclub in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Shortly before or after, a Lebanese man was seriously injured in a shooting. According to local media, the shooter was a bodyguard for a “highly connected Turkish guy”.

Opposition members in Sierra Leone claim that this bodyguard was employed by Leijdekkers, who entered the country with false papers. Although this story has been circulating in Sierra Leone for some time, there is still no conclusive evidence. The incident caused a great deal of commotion in the country at the time and dominated the local news.

https://www.crimesite.nl/nieuwe-video-bolle-jos-duikt-op-video/

I completely forgot about old timer Faas. Major player of the penoze back in the days

From butter smuggling to Belgium to ecstasy to Australia

Butter, hash and pills
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On the Belgian coast, a legendary smuggler is enjoying his old age. Sjef Faas (84) was smart enough to retire peacefully, something that bigger criminals often fail to do. He did spend a few years indoors. But unlike others, he can tell the story. Even his adventures with Klaas Bruinsma and Sreten Jocic.


In a book by journalist Joost van der Wegen, the long criminal life story of Sjef Faas is recorded: Butter, hash and pills .

Faas had just started as an apprentice to sail with an inland waterway skipper when his parents opened a pub on the Zeeland-Flemish border with Belgium in 1959. That café quickly became a landing place for smugglers where Sjef could get all kinds of lucrative small jobs. More attractive jobs than on the inland waterway.

Driving for butter smugglers to Belgium for example, they were always short of drivers. First driving empty cars back, then also cars with merchandise to Belgium.

Breakneck stunts

It is hard to imagine in these times of the European Union. In the fifties and sixties there was no EU and borders were very important. The Netherlands heavily subsidized dairy farmers on the price of butter and Belgium had therefore imposed a hefty import duty on Dutch butter.

These price differences led to unimaginable scenes on the small roads between the Netherlands and Belgium. The customs officers were shooting with live ammunition and the butter drivers were performing daredevil stunts, strewing crow's feet on the road and driving straight through roadblocks.


Eastern Bloc

Faas became a full-time criminal and developed into a logistics expert. When the European Community equalized butter prices, Faas switched to trading in illegal American cigarettes that had been imported without excise duty.

He bought the cigarettes in the Eastern Bloc, from behind the Iron Curtain, in East Germany and Poland, and picked them up on seagoing vessels. The state companies in those countries fully cooperated in the forgery of the papers.


Bruinsma

After that Faas ended up in Lebanon and became one of the founding fathers of the hash import in the Netherlands, again based on his knowledge of transport. He was one of the major suppliers of Klaas Bruinsma, and later he supplied Heineken kidnapper who had gone into drugs after his release, Cor van Hout.

In hash smuggling, things did not always go well. After a few thousand kilos were seized in England, Faas was wrongly blamed for the failure. The notorious Amsterdam Serb Sreten “Jotsa” Jocic imposed a criminal fine of one million on him and threatened Faas' family members with death. Faas did not flinch.

A meeting of Faas with Jocic and “Sergio” Miranovic ( shot dead in 2006) only resulted in new threats. He can only breathe a sigh of relief when Jocic is arrested in Bulgaria in 2002, and eventually extradited to Serbia.


Eleven million

Faas usually did well with the drug transports, except that he did run into two hefty convictions. In 1997, the Middelburg court sentenced him to
six years in prison for a number of impressive hash transports. And in 2005 he got seven years in a major ecstasy case about transports to Australia. That was reduced to 4.5 years on appeal.

Faas was actually ready for retirement at that time.

In the hashish file in Middelburg, the police had calculated that he had stashed away some eleven million guilders in Switzerland. Faas was unable to access that for a number of years. When he was able to, a few million had grown in the meantime.


And so the old butter smuggler Faas enjoys a luxurious old age in Knokke-Heist.

https://www.crimesite.nl/van-botersmokkel-naar-belgie-tot-xtc-naar-australie/

Crime
Manhunt underway after one of Europe's most-wanted fugitives spotted at religious service in Sierra Leone, police say
Updated on: February 6, 2025 / 6:23 AM EST / CBS/AFP

Police in Sierra Leone have said they are hunting a Dutch drug trafficker who is one of Europe's most-wanted fugitives and believed to be hiding out in the west African country.

Jos Leijdekkers was sentenced in absentia by a Rotterdam court in June last year to 24 years in prison for organizing the transport of seven tons of cocaine and ordering a murder.

Suspicion that he was in Sierra Leone arose after the country's first lady Fatima Bio posted pictures and a video on social media that showed a man strongly resembling Leijdekkers at a religious service attended by President Julius Maada Bio.

National police inspector general William Fayia Sellu said investigators had identified the man in the photos as Leijdekkers, alias "Omar Sheriff."

Convicted cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers attends a church service in Tihun, Sierra Leone, January 1, 2025, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video.
First lady Fatima Maada Bio via Facebook/via REUTERS

"A police man-hunt has been launched to arrest him, visiting several locations, but he has not been found yet," he told a news conference.

The 33-year-old — who authorities say is also known as "Bolle Jos" ("Chubby Jos") — is on the European Union law enforcement agency Europol's most-wanted list.

"Leijdekkers is considered to be one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking," according to Europol.

Leijdekkers is also believed to be involved in the disappearance and death of Naima Jillal, a woman who went missing in 2019 after she got into a car in Amsterdam, according to Europol. Intercepted messages allegedly showed that Leijdekkers "played an important role in Jillal's disappearance," the agency said.

"For a long time, there was no trace of Naima Jillal, until photos of a woman believed to be her were found on a phone seized in the Marengo investigation," Europol said. "The photos show that she was most likely tortured and is probably no longer alive."

Last month, the BBC reported that Dutch prosecutor Wim de Bruin said the fugitive's return to the Netherlands was of "the highest priority."

Europol has offered a 200,000-euro ($208,000) reward for information leading to his arrest.

As the BBC notes, West Africa is a major transit point for the trafficking of cocaine from Latin America. Last month, Sierra Leone recalled its ambassador from neighbouring Guinea after seven suitcases containing suspected cocaine were found in an embassy vehicle.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/europe-wanted-fugitive-jos-leijdekkers-religious-service-sierra-leone/

Sophie van Leeuwen, journalist and Africa correspondent for RTL News, was arrested in Sierra Leone on Thursday. Van Leeuwen is in the country to make stories about the Breda drug criminal Jos Leijdekkers, also known as Bolle Jos.

The journalist was arrested on Thursday at a checkpoint near the capital Freetown, RTL Nieuws reports. She is suspected of illegally recording images. Van Leeuwen attended a press conference of the country's Ministry of Information on Wednesday.

"We understand that she is being interrogated by the CID. Her belongings have been searched," RTL editor-in-chief Ilse Oppenneer said in a statement. According to the news organization, Van Leeuwen worked with the correct accreditation and with permission from local authorities.

A lawyer was with Van Leeuwen. She was released again on Thursday evening. Pending further questioning, the journalist is not allowed to leave the country. "We are happy that she is doing well," reports editor-in-chief Oppenneer.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is also aware of the incident with the Africa correspondent and is providing assistance. The spokesperson cannot say anything about what this assistance entails.

"The president and his government are merciless," opposition leader Mohamed K Mansaray told Omroep Brabant. "They do everything and go to great lengths to protect Jos Leijdekkers."

Mansaray had contact with Van Leeuwen before she traveled to the country. "She wanted to make sure she did everything by the book," he says. According to Mansaray, Van Leeuwen wanted to take a look at the village of Tokeh this Thursday, near a resort where Leijdekkers is believed to be hiding. "They recently set up a checkpoint there, she was arrested there and taken to the CID."

The Sierra Leonean journalist organization SLAJ states that it is not often that journalists are arrested in the country in this way. According to the chairman of the organization, Ahmed Sahid Nasralla, the police have said that Van Leeuwen is suspected of possible espionage.

The country's Ministry of Information, however, reportedly said it did have the proper accreditation.

Last January it emerged that Jos Leijdekkers was hiding in Sierra Leone. On images of a New Year's mass, the Breda drug criminal could be seen together with the daughter of the country's president. In the meantime, the Ministry of Justice and Security has submitted an extradition request to the authorities of Sierra Leone.

Bolle Jos is seen as the biggest drug criminal in our country and is on the national wanted list. Leijdekkers was sentenced in the Netherlands to 24 years in prison for international cocaine trafficking and for giving a murder order.

Money laundering case against Piet W. (54) started, justice suspects him of more
The trial against Siegfried "Piet" W. started today in the Rotterdam court.

Panorama Editorial
Feb 18, 2025 | 2:53 PM

Officially, W. is on trial for laundering millions of euros, but according to Crimesite, the justice department sees him as a major player in the international drug trade. He could also be linked to liquidations. Despite years of investigation, the Public Prosecution Service has no hard evidence for this.

On the radar for fifteen years
W. has been high on the justice system's priority list for over fifteen years. Where serious criminals like Ridouan Taghi and "Bolle Jos" Leijdekkers were convicted on the basis of clear evidence, this appears to be much more difficult with W. So far, he has only been convicted once: in 2014 he was sentenced to 7 years in prison for smuggling 1,100 kilos of cocaine.

Justice has since attempted to link him to larger drug shipments, including shipments of tens of thousands of kilos of cocaine to Hong Kong and Cape Verde, among other places. But because the evidence was insufficient, this did not lead to a conviction.

Money laundering with luxury possessions
The current case officially revolves around money laundering. The Public Prosecution Service states that W. spent millions of euros without a demonstrable legal source of income. According to the judiciary, he financed a Surinamese political party, owned several luxury cars – including a Rolls-Royce – and had millions in gold in his possession.

W. himself denies that there is any criminal money involved. His defense states that he earned his fortune with gold trading and concessions for logging and gold mining. The convicted Surinamese vice-president Ronnie Brunswijk even claims that the almost six million euros in gold that the justice department attributes to W., was his. However, the justice department questions this explanation.

Involved in liquidations?
W.'s name would also surface in investigations into various liquidations. Anonymous tips and wiretapped conversations point to his involvement in a cocaine racket in 2019. Shortly afterwards, two men were liquidated: former professional footballer Kelvin Maynard in Amsterdam and Genciël 'Genna' Feller in Curaçao.

However, again there is no hard evidence that W. was involved in these murders.

https://panorama.nl/artikel/636315/...-begonnen-justitie-verdenkt-hem-van-meer

Dutch Turk arrested in Casablanca on suspicion of arms trafficking
Morocco 1Feb 28 1:55
A Dutch national of Turkish descent was arrested on Thursday at Mohammed V airport in Casablanca.
He was arrested on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by the Dutch judiciary for alleged involvement in arms trafficking.

The man arrived on a flight from Istanbul and was immediately checked against the Interpol database. This showed that he was wanted internationally for possession and trafficking of firearms. The Moroccan authorities have placed him in custody pending his possible extradition to the Netherlands.

The Netherlands has been informed of the arrest and must now provide the extradition file. The arrest is part of the international cooperation against cross-border crime, in which Moroccan security services actively track down wanted persons.

Bolle Jos celebrates a birthday with the head of the narcotica brigade of Sierra Leone.

https://youtu.be/k2fR6wVXwY0?si=Ht7HJR_87YLUYa-T

Bolle Jos has become a cult figure here a jolly guy on the run in Africa facing 24 years but with amazing connections.

After the AD and Follow the Money published a new video on Friday with images of Bolle Jos Leijdekkers in Sierra Leone, a high-ranking civil servant of that country has been fired, according to the Algemeen Dagblad. It concerns the head of the Immigration Service Alusine Kanneh.

The video shows him celebrating his fiftieth birthday in an expensive restaurant, and receiving a gift from Leijdekkers. Whether the abrupt dismissal is related to the compromising video has not been confirmed.

The recent video also features Andrew Kaikai, the head of the country's drug police.

The Netherlands wants Sierra Leone to arrest and extradite Leijdekkers. The Dutch justice department has offered a reward of 200,000 euros for the golden tip that leads to his arrest.