Jan Struijs, chairman of the Dutch police union, has claimed that his country, the Netherlands, is a narco-state, with drug-dealing criminals running a parallel economy.
Struijis says that the Netherlands, often praised by left-liberals for its… decriminalization policy for drugsis now a “narco-state 2.0” where criminal dealers have become so influential that they compete with the official Dutch economy.
“I call the Netherlands a narco-state 2.0 because drugs pump so much money into the legal economy that it takes over. It undermines democracy, but also the economy,” said Struijis. told Swedish broadcaster SVT.
According to SVT, the massive black economy of illegal drugs has impacted several parts of the official economy of the Netherlands, including house prices and some companies that operate legitimate businesses but have been taken over by drug-dealing criminals.
In addition to influencing the economy, drug-dealing groups and mafia have also threatened and murdered journalists and lawyers in recent years.
Gang violence: trial reports of suspects in murder by veterans of Dutch crime journalistshttps://t.co/CX06srRK0g
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 7, 2022
The experienced Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was shot dead in the streets of Amsterdam in July last year and died a few days later. His death came after De Vries served as an adviser as a witness in a major crime gang trial known as the Marengo trial, whose leader Ridouan Taghi was extradited to the Netherlands in 2019.
Another man, lawyer Derk Wiersum, was also shot dead in 2019. He was the lawyer of a key witness in the Marengo trial.
In all, 17 people from the Moroccan or ‘Morco’ mafia were charged with six murders and several more attempted murders.
Journalist Jens Olde Kalter spoke to SVT about the murders, saying: “Is it worth dying for? Do I want my children to grow up without a father? Do I want my children to grow up in a narco-state? These are the kinds of things I think about.”
Violence related to drug gangs is not a new phenomenon in the Netherlands, with nearly 20 people murdered from 2021 to 16 in the so-called Morco War.
In March 2016, a gang went so far as to leave the severed head of a rival from another gang on the street in Amsterdam as part of the violence.
Migrant gangs leave severed head in Amsterdam street https://t.co/yB3GR3goQj pic.twitter.com/UYdULpiCM7
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 20, 2016