The Dutch have said goodbye to Peter R. de Vries. Thousands flocked to an Amsterdam theater on Wednesday to pay their last respects to the well-known crime reporter, the queue of those waiting stretched for hundreds of meters in the morning. The shock in the country over the brutal murder of the intrepid scout on July 6th on the street in Amsterdam is still deep.
Initial reactions from politics, such as Prime Minister Mark Rutte, spoke of an “attack on free journalism”. This is not wrong, but it covers the fact that the perpetrators and their clients tend not to target the media. De Vries had assisted the key witness in a major murder trial against a criminal gang. He probably had to die, like the brother and the lawyer of the key witness, because by attacking the famous reporter, the criminals were able to send an unmistakable warning sign: Stay away from our business! The chief public prosecutor has now also confirmed this connection.
That would be reason enough to rethink the astonishing power of organized crime, the driving force that makes it rampant: drug trafficking, and the disastrous consequences for the rule of law and society as a whole. But this is a topic that the Dutch like to avoid because it calls into question the prevailing self-image as a tolerant, cool country. Significantly, is also found in the most recent EU report not a word about the state of the rule of law in the Netherlands.
This contrasts with the term “narcotic state” that was used these days for the Netherlands. Although it is reminiscent of conditions like in Mexico or Colombia, it is not a journalistic invention. It was the police union that launched him in early 2018, in a report that was designed to shake things up. Based on the questioning of 400 officers, it found an enormous disparity between the extent of the crime and the capacity of the investigators. A criminal “parallel economy” has developed, but only every ninth gang can be prosecuted. The drug dealers then seek their profits in the catering trade, on the real estate market and in medium-sized businesses.
The Netherlands is a hub for hard drugs
It is difficult to gauge what is being earned here; it is definitely billions of euros. The Netherlands is the hub for hard drugs on the continent. A large part of the South American cocaine destined for Europe ends up in the port of Rotterdam or in Antwerp, Belgium. Measured against the seizures – in Antwerp it was more than 65 tonnes in 2020, ten times as much as in 2012 – the growth rates are enormous. Dutch dealers take care of the distribution, benefiting from open borders and the best infrastructure, also digitally. In the European online trade, the country leads the way in the manufacture of synthetic drugs such as MDMA and amphetamines, and it ranks high in cannabis production.
All of this is organized by criminal networks, motorcycle gangs, groups of mostly Moroccan or Turkish immigrants, with guys like Ridouan Taghi at the helm, who is now on trial and is associated with the murder of de Vries. The gangs are in fierce competition, there are always shootings, revenge or warning murders, even heads have been severed. On average, innocents are hit once a year because the bosses sometimes hire amateurs as killers. “Vergismoord” is what it means, accidental murder.
But the damage goes deeper. As early as 2017, the social scientist Pieter Tops and the journalist Jan Tromp described in a book how crime, which is predominantly linked to drug trafficking, undermines society. They focused on the province of North Brabant, where most of the pill laboratories are located. Criminal activities would have mixed with the daily life of actually honest people: couriers, car dealers, lawyers, financial advisors. Raids were of little use and the authorities were helpless. A mayor is quoted as saying: “Here people drive around in terribly fat cars and let their arms hang out of the window like a prince. They just want to show one thing: We are the boss here.”
Criminals can buy anything, investigators complain
Tops, meanwhile professor of “organized and subversive crime” in Leiden, regularly warns against neglecting the topic. In an article in 2020 he quoted a frustrated investigator: “All over the Netherlands, drug trafficking is deliberately negated.” Criminals would make money faster than you think and could then buy anything: contract killers, hackers, devices that would make you undetectable. “There are so many ways to put the middle finger on the state.”
Politicians have made more money available to the police. And as in Belgium there are now “multidisciplinary” teams in which customs, tax investigators, police and municipalities work together and have achieved individual successes. Amsterdam will soon stop letting tourists in coffee shops because they are causing too much trouble. A deeper reflection on the tolerant drug policy – in which drugs are actually forbidden, but “tolerated” – and a possible change of course is not in sight, not even after the murder of de Vries.
Only one letter to the editor made people sit up and take notice over the weekend. in the NRC Handelsblad Paul Stamsnijder, head of the consulting firm Reputatiegroep, wrote his anger about his country out of his body. A “cultural change” is needed, a farewell to the “polder” thinking, according to which everyone only has to talk to each other long enough to solve a problem. Drugs fueled crime, “it’s time to put limits on tolerance”. In an interview he complains about the complacency of many compatriots: “We are proud of our dealer mentality, our openness. We think we can create anything and are an exception in the world. We should be more modest.”