Jan Struijs, president of the Dutch police union, claimed that his country, the Netherlands, is a drug state, with drug-trafficking criminals running a parallel economy.
Struijis says that the Netherlands, often praised by left-liberals for its drug decriminalization policiesit is now a “narco-state 2.0” where criminal traffickers have become so influential that they compete with the official Dutch economy.
“I call the Netherlands 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,” Struijis said he said Swedish broadcaster SVT.
According to SVT, the massive black economy of illegal drugs has affected various parts of the official Dutch economy, including house prices and some companies that run legitimate businesses but have been taken over by drug-trafficking criminals.
Along with influencing the economy, drug cartels and mafias have also threatened and killed journalists and lawyers in recent years.
Gang Violence: Trial Biographies of Suspects in Murder of Veteran Dutch Journalisthttps://t.co/CX06srRK0g
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 7, 2022
Veteran Dutch crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was shot last July on the streets of Amsterdam and died several days later. His death came after De Vries was a consultant witness in a trial of a major criminal gang known as the Marengo trial, whose leader Ridouan Taghi was extradited to the Netherlands in 2019.
Another man, attorney Derk Wiersum, was also shot dead in 2019. He was the attorney for a star witness in the Marengo trial.
A total of 17 people in the Moroccan or “Morco” mafia have been 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 drug state? Those are the kinds of things I think about.”
Violence related to drug-trafficking gangs is not a new phenomenon in the Netherlands, with almost 20 people murdered between 2021 and 16 in the so-called Morco War.
In March 2016, one 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 the severed head on the street of Amsterdam https://t.co/yB3GR3goQj pic.twitter.com/UYdULpiCM7
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 20, 2016
