Accused Dutch crime boss is arrested in Dubai mansion

The Netherlands’ most wanted man, described by authorities as the kingpin atop a large and lethal criminal organisation, is so elusive that he has never been convicted of a major crime. In fact, the authorities were long unsure of where he was.

But on Monday, police in Dubai closed in on a mansion in a wealthy neighbourhood there and arrested the man, Ridouan Taghi, on international warrants on charges of murder and drug trafficking.

News of the arrest of Taghi, 41, was met with praise and jubilation in the Netherlands, where the accusations against him are well known, despite his efforts to keep a low profile. The Ministry of Justice and Security says that he leads a major cocaine smuggling operation and has had a hand in 11 killings.

“The political implications of the arrest are big,” said GJ Alexander Knoops, a professor of the politics of international law at the University of Amsterdam. “It probably is one of the most important arrests for the law enforcement agencies in the Netherlands in the last couple of years.”

Interest in Taghi intensified in September, when a lawyer, Derk Wiersum, was shot dead in Amsterdam — a killing that authorities suspect Taghi of ordering. Wiersum, a 44-year-old father of two, was representing a prosecution witness in a murder case against Taghi — who is being tried in absentia — and some of his associates.

Later that month, prosecutors added more allegations to the trial, charging Taghi with murdering an employee of a shop that sold spy equipment in 2015, and a crime blogger in 2016. They also charged him over two previous attempts to kill the blogger — in one instance by planting a bomb under his car — and the attempted murder of another man in Rotterdam.

Inez Weski, a lawyer for Taghi, withdrew from the trial in October, arguing that the proceedings were unfair. Her office declined to comment on his arrest.

While Taghi’s arrest is an undeniable milestone — the justice minister, Ferdinand Grapperhaus, called it “very good news” — authorities say that an organisation run by him is still operating. After the killing of Wiersum in September, dozens of Dutch officials received increased protection, reflecting what law enforcement officials said was the threat posed by the gang that Taghi is accused of running.

“That is an unprecedented situation for the Netherlands,” said Yelle Tieleman, a crime reporter for the Dutch daily newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, adding that such extensive surveillance and security “takes up a lot of police capacity.”

Dutch authorities hope to transport Taghi to the Netherlands within weeks to face prosecution, but the country does not have an extradition agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai.

Morocco also has its eyes on Taghi, who is wanted there over the 2017 killing of the son of a prominent judge in Marrakech. Morocco and the Emirates do have an extradition agreement.

Dutch police indicated in a news conference that they nonetheless did not expect extradition to the Netherlands to be a problem — although whether that will happen is up to a judge in Dubai, Knoops said.

“Everyone here assumes it’s a done deal,” Knoops said, “but legally it’s more complex.”

Taghi arrived in Dubai in 2016, using a Dutch passport issued under a different name, the Dubai police chief, Jamal Al Jallaf, told the Dutch broadcaster NOS.

While there, Dubai officials said, Taghi rarely left his home and took measures to remain under the radar. “The curtains were always closed,” Al Jallaf said. “Taghi was careful, very careful.”

Taghi had moved to the Netherlands from Morocco as a toddler and grew up in the Utrecht region, where as a young man he was part of a youth gang called “the Bad Boys,” according to Dutch news outlets. He came into contact with police in connection with burglaries and fights, but managed not to draw much attention.

Starting in the 1980s, a group of young Dutch mobsters gained a kind of celebrity status — notably Willem Holleeder, one of the men who in 1983 kidnapped Freddy Heineken, the chief executive of the brewing company, and his driver. The victims were freed, and the kidnappers were caught and went to prison.

Holleeder, who went on to commit other high-profile crimes, became so famous that he gave an interview in 2012 to a talk show on national television. His sister, Astrid Holleeder, wrote a best-selling memoir about helping authorities take down her brother. This year, at age 61, he was sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in multiple murders.

The high profile of that group of criminals and the attention that law enforcement paid them allowed other younger people to rise while staying in the background, said Marian Husken, who writes books on Dutch crime.

As Holleeder and his contemporaries have been imprisoned or killed, others have filled the vacuum, and the attention of law enforcement is now squarely on them, experts say.

“By trying and convicting these people, you don’t solve the underlying problem that the Netherlands is a transit country for cocaine,” said Sven Brinkhoff, an associate professor of criminal law at the Open University in Utrecht. “New people always rise up.”

© 2019 New York Times News Service