The Amsterdammer

The Mocro-maffia has stricken the capital city of the Netherlands once again. 

Derk Wiersum, Nabil B’s lawyer was killed on September 18th, spreading an unprecedented wave of emotion throughout the Netherlands as well as highlighting the malfeasance of a mafia system particularly active in the city of Amsterdam. 

Nabil B was part of a criminal organization lead by the most wanted fugitives in the country: Ridouan Taghi and his right-hand man Said Razzouki. He officially became a ‘crown witness’, an expression which indicates a key witness in a case of prime importance in the Netherlands. Nabil B is a repentant from the Taghi’s clan which is part of the so called Mocro-maffia, a Moroccan network of organized crime based mostly in the Netherlands and Belgium. The latter network flourished through the trafficking of cocaine and synthetic drugs brought from Antwerp while the former network mainly concerns drugs entering Rotterdam, which is then distributed to the rest of the Netherlands. This traffic caused an increase in violence with more vendettas through gunshots between the different gangs disputing their territories within the Mocro-maffia. In addition to Mr. Wiersum, other victims included Julian Curiel in August 2019, Inchomar Balentien and Rob van Eijk in July 2019 as well as the famous rapper Faissal Mssyeh better known as Feis during last New Year’s Eve. 

This case sheds light on Amsterdam’s ‘big problem’ with drugs and particularly the underground economy of hard drugs. The mayor of Amsterdam coins the issue as such in her report “The Other Side of Amsterdam”. Specifically, in the report, she reveals that “drug-related organized crime has a significant influence on the city.” 

Likewise, the main police union of the country, the NPB, declared after the murder of Nabil B’s lawyer that the Netherlands turned into a “narco-state.” In addition, it claimed that the political representatives at the municipal and national level were undermining the rampant criminality that plagues the Dutch society. The murder prompted other comments. Remco Andringa, journalist on the public television channel NOS, said with a preoccupied tone, “a lawyer liquidated in the Netherlands is never seen” while the prime minister, Mark Rutter, qualified the killing in broad daylight as “incredibly disturbing” and “very alarming news”.  

Concerns were also raised after Kelvin Maynard, a former Dutch football professional, was shot and killed in Amsterdam on September 22nd, 2019, just a few days after Wiersum’s murder. Could the Moroccan mafia be behind the killing of this ex-footballer? The Dutch daily De Telegraaf, citing a police investigation, disclosed some information regarding Maynard’s involvement in a drug deal—specifically that 400 kilos of cocaine vanished. However, the Dutch police indicated it did not yet draw any link between Derk Wiersum’s assassination and Kelvin Maynard’s one.

Such unsettling news inspired a TV-series called “Mocro-Maffia.” Launched on October 2018 by Achmed Akkabi and Thijs Römer, the program rehashed stories featuring the lives of real-life Dutch drug gangs using fictive names and different scenarios. Based on a true story, the series might not resolve the remaining mystery surrounding Derk Wiersum’s assassination, but at least it attempts to unravel and expose the mysteries surrounding the underworld of drug-trafficking in the Netherlands.