'Polish mafia': 'He didn't have to be killed, otherwise he couldn't pay'
September 4, 2023

Prison sentences of between ten months and seven years were demanded in the court in Zwolle against five Polish suspects of assault, arms imports and arson. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the five were brought to the Netherlands by one of the suspects ( Krystian M. ) of the murder of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries to carry out criminal jobs.

During a search as part of another investigation, weapons and several telephones were found in a home in The Hague in October 2021. For example, the National Criminal Investigation Department came across a group of men suspected of having acted as brokers and/or executors of serious crimes. Two suspects in investigation 26Woltz were also found in the house during that search. A total of eleven suspects are on trial in this case.

'Man fucked up'
According to the judiciary, the five Polish suspects in investigation 26Woltz participated in a series of violent jobs in various compositions. For example, a victim in Eindhoven is hammered in July 2020. One of the suspects says in a tapped conversation that 'he screwed up a man in Eindhoven in a forest'. Also in encrypted Sky ECC chats, a hammer passes several times and people talk about ' he got hammer his knee ' and that ' guy is broken for sure' .

'Hitting disabled'
In September 2021, the ex-husband of Ridouan Taghi's sister must be beaten "disabled" in Lopik . The intended victim is said to have harassed Taghi's sister. According to the Public Prosecution Service, alleged murder broker Krystian M. (28) sent Pawel J. and two others to Lopik to beat up the ex considerably. Chats indicate that shooting should be done 'on hands and knees'. The use of a sledgehammer is also referred to as 'full knee hands'. In the end, it does not come from the abuse of the intended victim.

arson
According to the Public Prosecution Service, three of the suspects are also the men who set fire to a business premises in Best in August 2021. Camera images show how the three men come to the business premises at night with two jerry cans with a fire-accelerating liquid. The men talk in Polish and drive off in a white Renault Clio. A glove and a pack of cigarettes with DNA traces pointing to the suspects are later found near the getaway car.

Armored doors with code
In December 2021 there is a job in Groningen. Three of the suspects, possibly armed with axes, visit someone in a business building to collect an outstanding debt. The job fails, one of them tells in a recorded conversation:

'We also went to Groningen. It was a fortress. Armored doors with bolt and code. We went inside and a woman and a guy came to us and a Russian (…) There was no chance.' Another suspect states: 'Actually, the three of us were supposed to go to the man and hit him. We had to scare him. We also had to record it, film it. (…) he shouldn't be killed, otherwise he couldn't pay.'

Moroccan rapper
That same month, a Moroccan rapper is also trapped in The Hague and robbed of his shoes, jacket and telephone. One of the Polish suspects tells several people that they were actually after an expensive watch: 'He had a watch for 240,000 Old Ones, a doorway down…a doorway down…broken fingers. Completely undressed. I say: 'I will kill you. Where's the watch?' I threw his key to the Golf in the ditch. I smashed up his whole car.'

Lucky Luke
In addition to assaults, Pawel J. (29) and Robert M. (40) are suspected of importing a pistol and an automatic firearm with ammunition and silencer. They will be found in January 2022 when the police pull over Pawel J.'s car near Zwartemeer, near the German-Dutch border. It already followed from tapped conversations that it was the intention that an 'iron', 'what Lucky Luke had', should be picked up from another country. Later in these conversations it is also discussed that it is about one of those things that one only uses once.

The OM is demanding seven years in prison against Pawel J. and Robert M. Prison sentences of between ten and 54 months have been demanded against the other three suspects.

Weapon arsenal
In the 26Woltz investigation, a large arsenal of weapons was found in March 2022 in a storage room of a house in Alphen aan de Rijn. It concerned 22 small arms, 22 automatic weapons including sniper rifles and four anti-tank weapons (bazookas). Five men will be tried later in September in connection with this weapons stash. According to the judiciary, the weapon stash probably contained the weapon with which Peter R. de Vries was shot.

In addition, later this month, four people will stand trial for the shooting of 'tattookiller' Cor P. in the Dominican Republic on January 4, 2022.

A verdict in the case is expected on November 14.

Princess Amalia started her second year at the University of Amsterdam today. But the 19-year-old still has to do without freedom and independence. Reason: The threat from the drug mafia is still high. So high that the Crown Princess will have to live with restrictions in the future and will not move back to Amsterdam.

Learning with fellow students, experiencing student parties, moving into your own booth for the first time: Even in the coming semester, these ideas of a carefree student life will not come true for Princess Amalia for the time being. As "Dana Press" reports, the Crown Princess will not return to Amsterdam and will continue to study from her parents' home at Schloss Huis ten Bosch.

A protective measure that has been in place for over a year. At that time, the first rumors arose that Amalia could be in danger. The reason: the eldest daughter of King Willem-Alexander was targeted by the Mocro-Maffia . After the rumors turned out to be an acute threat, the consequences followed. Protecting the princess was the top priority. Nowhere could security be guaranteed better than in the palace of the Dutch royal family. For Amalia, this meant she had to pack up her tent just a few days after moving to a shared flat in Amsterdam.

With the current decision, it is clear: the threat still exists. Even if the young heir to the throne appears more frequently in public appearances, the situation is extremely depressing, as she explains in an interview on her first official trip abroad .

Visiting the Venice Film Festival should have put everyone in a good mood despite all the disappointment. Away from the red carpet, the Dutch Crown Princess was spotted in the company of Belgium's King Philippe and his children.

Public Prosecution Service demands up to five years for Mexicans for working in drug labs
September 9, 2023

The Public Prosecution Service has demanded prison terms of five and four years against three Mexican men before the court in Arnhem for producing crystal meth in an illegal laboratory. On Thursday, the public prosecutor also demanded five and four years in prison for two men from Zevenaar and Arnhem in this case.

Cooks
The Mexican cooks were flown in to produce methamphetamine here, the prosecutor said. The Public Prosecution Service wants the men to pay an amount of 106,961.40 euros in criminally obtained money in addition to the prison sentence.

Shed
On June 28 last year, the police raided the warehouse in Arnhem containing the drug lab. The police had received several signals about the building. A living area had been set up in the warehouse, where the police found the three Mexican suspects during the raid.

The police then found a hidden hatch that gave access to a professional drug lab, intended to produce or process synthetic drugs on a large scale.

Eldest son (22) and 'heir apparent' Ridouan Taghi arrested in Dubai
Ridouan Taghi's eldest son (22) has been arrested in Dubai, he has been in custody since the end of July. Investigative services consider him a key player in his father's organization. The investigation had long suspected that he was being groomed by his father to take over his organization.

The police in Dubai arrested Ridouan Taghi’s oldest son, Faissal, early last month, sources told De Telegraaf. Like his father, Faissal (22) is suspected in the Netherlands of participation in a drug-trafficking criminal organization and money laundering, among other things.

Several intelligence services, including those of Dubai and Morocco, played a key role in Faissal Taghi’s arrest. Employees of those services also interrogated him, and that raised new suspicions against several Dutch lawyers, the Telegraaf wrote. The Dutch police and Public Prosecution Service (OM) wouldn’t comment to the newspaper on the matter.

The Nehterlands concluded an extradition treaty with Dubai in 2021, so Faissal will probably be extradited here. As the case against his father and other members of his gang is in its final stages, Faissal will likely be tried separately.

The Dutch police had intensive contact with their colleagues in Dubai in the investigation into Faissal. According to the Telegraaf, the OM describes the investigation into Faissal Taghi as “very complex internationally.”

Faissal Taghi is linked to the Italian mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale, who has since become a key witness for the Italian authorities. According to the authorities, Faissal Taghi and Imperiale worked together in an extensive smuggling network of drugs and cash through Dutch industrial estates.

Imperiale allegedly had trucks containing cocaine driving from company warehouses in Noord-Holland to Italy. On the way back, the trucks smuggled millions of euros in cash to the Netherlands to be laundered. The OM suspects that Faissal Taghi made at least 5 million euros from this operation.

`El Rico’ was recently moved from the maximum security Extra Secure Institution (EBI) in the Netherlands to a “supervision unit” as he prepares for freedom.

The Dutch-Chilean drug trafficker Ricardo Riquelme Vega, whose nickname means ‘The Rich One’ was sentenced to 11 years in jail after being convicted of running a gangland assassination ring.

According to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service, El Rico was the leader of a criminal organisation that carried out assassinations, traded in cocaine and laundered money.

He carried out these operations together with Taghi, it has been alleged.

While El Rico is suspected of involvement in certain specific assassinations, he was never convicted for any particular one, and his sentence was limited to 11 years.

He has been transferred to a lighter prison regime, EenVandaag reports, as he is due for release in 2025.

Good morning Netherlands - September 15, 2023 — 11:21


Prisons take extra measures after arrest of Taghi's son: 'Super necessary'
Prisons have scaled up security measures as Ridouan Taghi's son has been confirmed in Dubai. It has never happened before in the Netherlands that multiple prisons take these types of measures at the same time. That's what Het Parool writes .

The only 22-year-old Faissal Taghi is seen as the successor to his father's criminal empire. This week he was arrested in Dubai, which set off alarm bells in the Netherlands.

The police expect that his arrest could lead to unrest. To avoid chaos, several penitentiary institutions are taking extra measures. Detainees, mainly those linked to Taghi's criminal organization, are monitored more closely, are allowed to leave their cells less, make fewer phone calls and receive fewer visitors.

Extradition denied
Faissal Taghi was arrested in Dubai at the end of July, following an extradition request from the Netherlands. Taghi's eldest son is suspected of having continued his father's criminal organization since he ended up in the EBI in Vught in 2019. Consider international drug trafficking, money laundering and the preparation of violent crimes.

Faissal Taghi has remained in custody in Dubai since his arrest. The Netherlands requested extradition, but it was rejected by a judge in Dubai. The Netherlands has now appealed against that decision.

Police capacity
All these extra measures mean more deployment of police personnel, says police union director Nine Kooiman. “It has consequences for the security and surveillance deployed by the police. It requires more capacity, but it is extremely necessary,” she says in Goedemorgen Nederland on NPO 1.

The court in Amsterdam has set a new date for the ruling in the Marengo case. She will deliver judgment for all suspects on Tuesday, February 27, 2024.

Hearings in the Marengo case will take place again in October in the extra-secure court, De Bunker, in Amsterdam. A pro forma hearing will take place on October 6 for all suspects.

17 people are on trial in the case, on suspicion of participation in a criminal organization and of involvement in 6 murders, 4 attempted murders and of preparing assassinations. Ridouan Taghi and Said Razzouki are suspected of leading the organization.

The latest news in the case was that the key witness in the Marengo trial, Nabil B., has a lawyer again. Onno de Jong again registered as his counselor.

Ridouan Taghi was also left without a lawyer after the resignation of Inez Weski, suspected of membership of a criminal organization. Arthur van der Biezen, Michael Ruperti and Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen presented themselves as the new lawyers. They previously did not participate in the Marengo trial against Taghi.

But Taghi has announced through his new lawyers that he no longer wishes to participate in the court process. On July 19, the court decided that the three new lawyers will not be given additional time to study the file. They had requested a nine-month extension to do so. Taghi talks about a ' sham trial '.

Interview request for life sentence Dino Soerel wrongly rejected
September 20, 2023

The appeal committee of the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Youth Protection (RSJ) has upheld a complaint by Dino Soerel, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, about refusing an interview request with the media. Soerel wanted to participate in a documentary about the Passage process. That request had previously been rejected by the penitentiary institution (PI) Heerhugowaard.

Series
Dino Soerel (62) was sentenced to life in prison on appeal in June 2017 for, among other things, ordering the murders of Thomas van der Bijl (2006) and Kees Houtman (2005). In 2018, the Supreme Court rejected his cassation request.

Soerel was approached by documentary makers to participate in a series about the Passage Process. He would have one or two introductory conversations that would be recorded with a dictaphone. Afterwards, recordings might be made with a camera.

to disturb
The director of the facility rejected that request on March 7, 2022. Soerel (photo) went to the complaints committee, which declared his complaint unfounded in February of this year.



The director decided negatively about the interview in connection with the interests of the surviving relatives, who did not want to see the matter stirred up in the media. If Soerel were to appear on television, it would disrupt the peace and grieving process of the relatives in an unacceptable manner.

Peace
The RSJ appeals committee finds the weighing of interests 'insufficiently clear'.

The appeals committee understands the interest of the surviving relatives in rest. Approaching the surviving relatives would place too great a burden on them.

However, the appeals committee believes that the management has not sufficiently substantiated 'that this importance is so great that the complainant's request could be rejected on this ground alone.'

The appeals committee takes into account that when the management rejected the request, the conviction was 5.5 years ago, and the rejection came more than 3.5 years after the Supreme Court's judgment.

To inform
In the opinion of the appeals committee, the director should have inquired about the surviving relatives' views on a possible interview with Soerel. Moreover, the documentary will be made anyway, whether Soerel participates or not.

Therefore, the director has not sufficiently justified the rejection of Soerel's request for contact with the media. The management of the PI Heerhugowaard must make a new decision on the request.

What is going on with Ridouan Taghi as of now ? Is his group still on top in Holland ?

The Moroccans still have influence but Jos Leijdekkers and Edin Gacanin are now the top guys, The Hague and Rotterdam also have some big bosses and in Brabant there are many Dutch who are involved in xtc, speed and ketamine.

Dutch gangs would be more powerful if it wasn't for the wooden shoes they wear!

I think his entire network has been dismantled. Who knows, maybe they're still pulling a few strings from prison, but seeing they are under constant surveillance that must be quite difficult. Law enforcement is coming down hard on the Moroccan groups. And Taghi's group were definitely not the only ones bringing in tons of cocaine. Even though Samir Bouyakhrichan got killed years ago, people from his network stayed active, but many of them as well got busted in recent years.

In recent years, a few criminal circles that were traditionally active in other drug markets have been active in cocaine smuggling as well. Like some of the Turkish/Kurdish groups - who were traditionally mostly active in the heroin business - and some Dutch Traveller groups from North Brabant, who largely control the synthetic drug trade.

Surinamese networks (like the Piet Wortel group) and gangs from Curaçao (most notably NLS) have also stayed very active in the cocaine trade. The Curaçao-based gangs tend to use a large amount of couriers to consistently bring in smaller amounts of cocaine (not more than a few kilos per courier), but somehow they make quite a lot of money.

Old school criminals from the Amsterdam HA circle have also been brought into connection with cocaine shipments. A few years ago a major guy got locked up (Danny K.) but I don't think they actually got enough on him to keep him behind bars for long. I don't even think LE had any proof in linking his group to the big cocaine shipment they were suspected to be behind.

Italians in the Limburg region in both the Netherlands and Belgium have in recent years also been arrested for bringing in tonnes of cocaine. The Limburg region has a huge Italian community (when you combine both the Dutch and Belgian Limburg provinces, there must be close to 50.000 Italians living there) and Ndrangheta, Camorra and Mafia figures have all been detected there.

It's hard to say who's exactly on top, because the market for cocaine in the Netherlands and the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium is so enormous and there are so many different groups active. Taghi's network was most definitely big time, but they were never the only ones behind all of that cocaine coming through the port. Far from it.
The Amsterdam/Utrecht region Moroccan groups got a lot of heat because a lot of violence was associated with them and they were connected to a few other major European crime syndicates - like Taghi's group had widely publicized connections to the Kinahan crime family from Dublin, the Gacanin clan from Bosnia, the Gillespie crime family from Glasgow and Raffaele Imperiale's Camorra group, whereas Bouyakhrichan's group had connections to the Dawes crime family from Nottingham - but at the same time you also had Rotterdam-based Moroccan groups that were active in bringing in tonnes of cocaine with far less violence.

Hey what you gonna do we are farmers !

Both Jos and Edin are very close to top players from Balkans, very interesting. I wonder if Joca Amsterdam still has any power there.

I knew that Netherlands is biggest consumer and producer of synthetic drugs but i had no idea about cocaine market being so huge there with so many people involved. Considering number of groups and players i would expect much more violence.

Jocic's son and wife are still here, a lot of his friends also, is he still in prison?

He should be released this year. His 14 year sentence is coming to an end. He will side with Kavacki clan for sure , because Luka Bojovic is sided with Skaljarski. Also Jos Leijdekkers and Edin Gacanin are close to Kavacki. Jos Leijdekkers used to communicate almost daily with Radoje Zvicer via SKY who is leader of Kvacki clan.

Oh the cocaine market is enormous. I live in an area of about 12.000 people right now and top of my head I can name about 100 regular cocaine users that live in my area. I'd say that at any rave or party or nightclub event there's more people using drugs than there are people not on some kind of drug. Most users are either recreational users or functioning addicts. And most of them have traditional "respectable" professions; managers, lawyers, salespeople, consultants, teachers, doctors, etc... Life in Western Europe - despite arguably being the safest place in the world you can live in, and certainly one of the richest - is still extremely stressful; high workload, having to deal with other extremely stressed out people on a daily basis, lots of expectations, a huge tax burden, tons of social pressure and a general culture of discontentment. A lot of people look for either escapes from reality (like synthetic drugs) or ego/confidence boosts (like cocaine) to be able to deal with it all. So there's lots of users and more potential ones out there. Especially seeing younger kids these days are starting to use especially synthetic drugs and cocaine at an increasingly young age. I remember when I was a 16-year-old we started to drink a bit and smoked some weed or hashish from time to time, but 16-year-olds these days are popping mollies, snort ketamine and cocaine at some dorky youth movement party. That was unheard of back in the day. For some reason though all that drug use doesn't seem to lead to a ton of violence because you actually don't see a whole lot of fights happen these days among these youngsters. When I was in secondary school we were literally fighting and kicking the crap out of each other on an almost daily basis.

Honestly, it has always puzzled me as well why there still is comparatively little inter-group violence. Probably it's because the market seems to be big enough for everyone and all of them are still making a ton of money. Also, despite hits happening, most organizations still prefer to keep a relatively low profile because at the end of the day there are huge busts on the regular and most drug traffickers don't last that long before they end up in prison and have to start over again. And even though prison in any Western European country is not the worst place on earth, nobody likes to go to prison. In general I'd say that organizations active in the drug trade over here are highly professional. They have to be, because despite all of their professionalism most don't last more than a few years before they get hit hard by law enforcement and experience a major setback anyhow.

Violence between different "ethnic" organizations is virtually unheard of over here. Most of the violence comes from internal settlings of disputes.

The court in Amsterdam on Monday sentenced a 36-year-old man and a 22-year-old man on appeal to 30 years in prison for the mistaken murder of Ayla Mintjes (27) and an attempted liquidation of her boyfriend Anis B. in May 2021. The sentence is equal to the demand of justice on appeal, but considerably higher than the court previously imposed.

The court considers it proven that Samuel Y. (22) and Renato “Nato” F. (36) drove to Mintjes' home on Maassluisstraat in Amsterdam-Slotervaart on May 16, 2021 and waited there until her Mercedes left the parking garage. The suspects then fired on the Mercedes with automatic weapons. At least 36 shots were fired. The court assumes that Mintjes was not the target of the assassination attempt, but her boyfriend Anis B., who sat next to her in the car and was on a death list.

According to the court, shots were fired in a residential area at a time when people are usually on the street. The hail of bullets extended to a distance of many hundreds of meters, even to the top of homes. Anyone in the area of ??the spreading fire was in real danger of being fatally struck. The hail of bullets damaged several homes and vehicles parked in the street.

You literally explained exactly what is happening here, at every club almost everyone are on cocaine, cocaine is glamorized, a lot of people think they are 'cool' if they snort cocaine , 17-18 years old think its prestige to snort cocaine. Same , when we were 16-19 years old , i never even saw cocaine , only weed sometimes and alcohol. I have no idea how cocaine became so popular, probably thru music/shows, a lot of songs glamorize cocaine. We used to do coke on every NYE or some other 'special' occasion, it was 2-3 times a year maximum, now we stopped even that.

Mirza G., 44, from Breda, who was sentenced to four years in prison in the Netherlands for money laundering, was transferred from Spain to the Netherlands on Tuesday, the Public Prosecution Service reports. He was arrested in Spain in July .

Not present
G. was born in Bosnia and married to a Dutch woman (42). They were convicted of money laundering by the court in Breda on December 12, 2022. He received 4 years in prison and his wife 18 months in prison. G. was not present during the hearing and the ruling of the case. The court had previously released him provisionally.

Anonymous information
The investigation against G. started after anonymous information was received in 2017 that he earned his money through drug trafficking. The investigation revealed nothing of this. He was convicted by the court in connection with transactions involving three properties in Breda and a real estate project in Spain.

Threat
G. is the cousin of Edin Gacanin., a resident of Breda who is suspected of involvement in international drug trafficking. Mirza G. is not on good terms with him, he reported threats in 2020.

Edin Gacanin was arrested in Dubai on request , but later released . The United States Treasury Department then placed him on the blacklist of people subject to asset freezes and with whom Americans are prohibited from doing business.

@Strax, in 2018 the murdered crime reporter Peter R. de Vries testified in the Holleeder trial.

Holleeder had told him that: Mink Kok would be behind the liquidation of rogue ex-lawyer Evert Hingst, an old claim that was once mentioned in Elsevier. Furthermore, Sreten Jocic is said to have threatened public prosecutor Koos Plooij. Mink Kok and Jocic are said to have had murders committed together.

There was also talk that Holleeder would have told De Vries about the payment of a hundred thousand euros to a corrupt Amsterdam police officer.

De Vries informed the court that based on Holleeder's account he could write a shocking book that would 'make everything written so far pale'.

Mink Kok was last year extradited from Lebanon, in June he was sentenced by the court in Rotterdam to a prison term of 6 years. . He was sentenced for importing 400 kilos of cocaine and setting up a drug lab where cocaine could be processed.
He has underworld ties all over Europe, Middle East and Latin America.

Mink has become a legend in Holland lol he survived all the mayhem since the 80s !

Mink's arrest

Edin Gacanin inherited the business from his father Miralem Ga?anin, his father was working with Dutch man named Arnoldus Josephus Van Horsen , Arnoldus helped Edin with everything after death of his father in 2008, he helped build the 'supercartel'.

Mirza G. is now running from both Edin and the law, in Breda he bought buildings in city center for millions of euros, drove expensive cars and so on. His wife Rosita van den D. is accomplice.

Mirza G. sending threads to journalists: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IzNwOS3O0C4 , before the threats he is talking about how he is free and building that house in Holland.

How the Chinese mafia became boss in the Red Light District
In the 1970s, Amsterdam's Chinatown was the scene of a bloody war between Chinese triads who disputed control over illegal gambling houses and the emerging heroin trade.
History
Cees Koring
Jun 26 2018 | 10:35
Bureau Warmoesstraat
Part of the Zeedijk, the Stormsteeg, Geldersekade and Binnen Bantammerstraat is also called Chinatown. A big word for a piece of the capital of a few hundred square meters, but in the 1970s this place was big enough for tough, rarely seen crime. A bloody war was fought in the streets of Amsterdam-Chinatown between Chinese who disputed control over (illegal) gambling houses and the emerging heroin trade.

The soldiers in that war were members of societies with mysterious names such as 14 K, Wo Lee Kwan, Wo Sing Wo and Fuk Yee Hing. There were suddenly dead people on the bridge at Binnen Bantammerstraat and on the quays on the edge of the warm neighborhood. On May 20, 1975, Arie Damsteegt and his colleague Rinus Waterloo, detectives from the Warmoesstraat bureau who were in charge of Chinese affairs, found themselves in the middle of the gangster war.

This time the center of the violence was Wahkiauw/Si Hoi, a gambling house and restaurant that ran from the Geldersekade to the Prins Hendrikkade. A few months earlier, its boss, Chung Mon, had been murdered in mafia-like fashion near his business and in the middle of the day. Damsteegt: 'Since the murder of Chung Mon, there has been constant rot at Wahkiauw. There were arguments and shouting matches in which mothers were severely insulted. That provoked fights. Rinus and I had an appointment on May 20 with people who were the bosses of the gambling house after the murder of Chung Mon.'

Damsteegt continues: 'We wanted peace and quiet in the tent. While waiting for the conversation, we had a cup of tea in the part of the building where a travel agency was also located. Suddenly we heard sounds that sounded like fireworks: prr, prr. And immediately afterwards a bunch of Chinese people emerged through a door that led to the gambling house. They literally crawled and rolled over each other to get out. “ Ta chicken!” it sounded. "A raid!" Rinus and I pulled out our pistols – we still had those little FN's – and we went inside the gambling house. I heard bullets hitting the wall around me. There was a man standing near the gambling tables with a large, shiny firearm. We knew him as the boss of the security team; the security service, so to speak. He pointed the gun right at my head. Cursing in Chinese, I walked over to him and took the gun from him. I didn't think he was going to shoot me, but if he had, I would have gone to hell swearing.'

Damsteegt: 'I saw Rinus standing with a man lying at a gambling table. “He's blowing bubbles of blood,” Rinus shouted. The man was already dead. With the Chinese's weapon and my own pistol in my hands, I walked on to the side of the Geldersekade. At that time there was a sand dam there. A number of Chinese then burst in. I shot too. It was wrong and at the same time it crossed my mind that I was happy about it. There was also shooting from the gambling house, but that stopped when we walked forward. Suddenly colleagues drove up from everywhere. I have never seen so many officers arrive at the same time so quickly. With the exception of one or two, the entire group of attackers could be captured. Around and in the gambling house there were two dead and a whole host of injured, also from stabbings. It was chaos.'

Commissioner Gerard Toorenaar, the former chief of the central police in Amsterdam, wrote in his memoirs in 1985 that the violence stemmed from a battle between triads, secret Chinese societies. These groups were active in drug trafficking and in the gambling business. Wo Lee Kwan wanted to compete with Amsterdam gambling boss Chung Mon by opening a gambling house near his club Wahkiauw, according to Toorenaar.

Chung Mon, nicknamed Fokkie Lang ("afraid of no one"), threatened to drain the triad. He wanted to cut off their heroin lines to Amsterdam, which is why the Wo Lee Kwan successfully sent assassins after him on March 3, 1975. A few months later, on that infamous May 20, the bloody power grab at Wahkiauw followed, in which Damsteegt and Waterloo became involved. Arie Damsteegt: 'At that time we had just gained a little insight into the backgrounds of those triads. But when we first talked to colleagues about secret Chinese societies, we were called morons. Such things did not exist in Amsterdam at all, or so it was initially argued.'

The first Chinese settled in the Netherlands around 1910. It concerned personnel on the large steam vessels - coal barges and stokers - who hung around in sheds (' boarding houses ') in the port areas of Rotterdam and Amsterdam between sea voyages. Gradually, Chinese also settled in the residential areas near the ports. As early as 1916, there was a small community in the Buiten Bantammerstraat in Amsterdam, according to Karina Meeuwse in her book Het Huis van Han , about the history of the Chinese in our country. The Chinese opened lodging houses, restaurants and laundries. Those who were not so enterprising found a job there.

The crisis of the 1930s brought even more sailors to shore and the peanut man entered the scene. Forced by unemployment, many Chinese took to the streets with a container full of peanut cookies for their bellies (' pinda, peanut, lekka, lekka '). Willy Derby sang a song about it and this created a stereotypical image. In fact, the Netherlands knew nothing more about the Chinese than that they came from a distant country, could not pronounce the 'r', had slit eyes and sold cookies. On the other side was a very closed community. Even when heated arguments broke out among themselves, the warring parties covered each other with unprecedented silence.

Such as in the summer of 1922. Commissioner Voordewind mentioned in his memoirs about that time a shooting between Chinese, killing and wounding, on the Oude Waal in old Amsterdam. During the interrogations, the suspects 'shut up': they kept their jaws clenched. Police only discovered that the altercation involved groups called Bo On and Three Fingers, but what it was all about remained unclear. "There may have been foul practices in the recruitment of sailors," the commissioner said.

In fact, there was a war between triads, which had been contesting each other's control over employment on seagoing vessels for years, but the police had no idea of ??this at the time. The shooting on the street gave public order a serious blow and caused so much unrest that hundreds of Chinese were deported from the country.

Around the 1940s, there were few Chinese in our country due to the deportation policy. Those who stayed could be found in the Katendrecht district of Rotterdam and in the Binnen Bantammerstraat in Amsterdam. It was called the 'Chinese street': Thong Yan Kai. The residents there kept their traditions alive. In Yo Li, the first gambling house in the city, fantan and mahjong were played loudly for a lot of money. There was also an opium den that was left undisturbed by the police. The war of 1922, fought in the streets, was long forgotten.

In 1977 , The Hague Post quoted a Dutch junkie who had been getting his opium in the Binnen Bantammerstraat for years: 'There were four or five of those old Chinese people, next to the gambling house. Very old men, some 80 years old. At certain times they came outside to see if there was a customer. Just making a few deals on the corner. 10 guilders for a slice of opium. No unrest. No crime. It was made in the opium den for the Chinese scene. There they lay smoking on low wooden beds, with long pipes. There was a large iron pot on the fire in which the boss prepared the opium. The Chinese were then left completely alone; the police did not look further into it as long as it did not become bigger.'

Dutch and Mexicans arrested after discovery of drug lab in Giessenburg
October 2, 2023

The police found a drug lab in a business premises in Giessenburg (South Holland) on Saturday. Seven men were arrested in the building: two Dutch, four Mexicans and a Pole.

Raid
An arrest team entered the business premises on Parallelweg in Giessenburg on Saturday morning around 7 a.m. This happened after a police investigation by the National Criminal Investigation Department. A drug lab for producing synthetic drugs was found in the building. Seven men who were found in the building were immediately arrested. It concerns four Mexicans, two Dutch and a Pole.

Hundreds of liters of chemicals
In the building, the police found hundreds of liters of chemicals for the manufacture of synthetic drugs. A sleeping area was also found next to the production line. It is still unclear whether this could possibly be a crystal meth lab.

The mayor has immediately closed the building administratively.

The seven men have been arrested for questioning and will be arraigned at the court in Den Bosch on Tuesday.

'Ex-Satudarah's are not allowed to work for Defense'
October 4, 2023

Two brothers from Tiel who were members of the now banned Satudarah MC are therefore no longer allowed to hold certain positions in Defense. According to Omroep Gelderland, the Utrecht administrative court has rejected a complaint from the brothers against this.

Twenty years in the military
Defense refused to give the two positions in the armed forces where they would have access to confidential information. The brothers then went to court.

They had been members of Satudarah since 2010. The motorcycle club was banned by the judge in 2018 because the club allegedly engaged in criminal activities and posed a threat to public order.

The pair have been military for more than twenty years. The brothers took part in many foreign missions.

Out of the way
The brothers denied there was a safety risk. They say they have not come into contact with criminal members and have avoided those contacts.

The administrative judge finds that it is established that the men still have contacts with former club members and that this is partly why Defense may doubt the suitability of the brothers for a confidential position.

Chapter Nijmegen
One of the two brothers was president of the Nijmegen chapter of Satudarah. The other also had a management position and, among other things, monitored order during club nights and parties.

In 2019, Defense withdrew the so-called declaration of no objection (VGB) for the two to fulfill a confidential position.