A lawyer shot dead in the street, a journalist murdered in the center of Amsterdam – in the Netherlands, a drug mafia has developed around the cocaine trade in recent years, earning billions and seemingly stopping at nothing.
The murder of crime journalist Peter R. de Vries in particular has made it clear that organized crime is threatening the very foundations of the Netherlands. “It’s a war for power and billions. It’s about killing to avoid being killed,” says a well-known Dutch lawyer.
Cocaine smuggling via the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg has been increasing dramatically over the years. Investigators are on the trail of this illegal activity using every conceivable methods. During raids, they regularly find weapons and huge quantities of drugs and arrest many suspects.
The WDR documentary also reports about that the illegal money earned from drugs is also laundered in Germany. Again and again, couriers are apprehended at the German borders transporting hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of euros into Germany. Unlike in most countries, there are no limits on cash transactions here; suspected cases of money laundering are rarely reported and even more rarely end up in court. This allows cocaine cartels to invest drug money in expensive goods, export them from Germany and turn them back into money whose criminal origin can hardly be reconstructed. With the help of the laundered money, drug dealers become investors and seemingly legal businessmen. “I believe that an incredible number of very, very expensive properties are now in the hands of criminals,” is the assessment of one investigator.
This documentary provides an insight into the world of organized crime surrounding the ever-growing cocaine smuggling trade. It follows investigators in the Netherlands, where the drugs arrive and where the brutal battle for markets is currently taking place. It also shows how tricky the drug dealers are in laundering their profits and the incredible effort German investigators are making to find the illegal money. How much power do the drug dealers already have? The answers are disturbing.
For this documentary production Featurez gave advice, did the research, set up, (organised interviews and filming with the Dutch criminal investigation chief, the Dutch harbour police, crime reporter Peter R. de Vries and the crown witness lawyers, an ex-corrupt Rotterdam harbour worker and a criminal law lawyer), did the planning, accompanied the filming, did translations and organised archive video footage.
This documentary is published on the Featurez video page.