Alleged Dutch drugs baron Siegfried “Piet” W. was arrested at Aruba’s Queen Beatrix International Airport on Wednesday. (Aruba Tourism Authority file photo)
ORANJESTAD/AMSTERDAM--Aruba was the scene of the arrest of one the biggest suspected bosses of the Dutch cocaine mafia by the Dutch police on Wednesday. Siegfried “Piet” W. was detained after his arrival on a flight from Paramaribo, Suriname.
The 53-year-old Dutch drugs baron with Suriname roots was held after a successful operation of the FastNL Team and the Dutch National Detective Department, the National Police Unit and the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office confirmed on Thursday.
Dutch police had received information that Piet W., the undisputed leader of a drugs gang that operates worldwide as a ‘multinational,’ would take a flight to Aruba from Suriname, where he has been staying for several years.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately filed a legal assistance request for his arrest. The special police units were waiting for W. at Aruba’s Queen Beatrix International Airport where he was caught at the passport control.
W. is still locked up in Aruba and will shortly be transported to the Netherlands where he has to do his remaining jail time. W., who was born in the Netherlands from Surinam parents, was being sought by authorities because he still has to sit almost three years in jail.
After a 13-day mega process, the Rotterdam Court in March 2014 had sentenced the suspect to seven years in prison for organising drugs transports and participation in a criminal organisation. During a short leave from prison, he escaped to Paramaribo, as a result of which he did not do the complete jail term.
As part of a criminal investigation under the code name ‘Tidore,’ W. was caught in 2012. This investigation was initiated after the discovery of more than 1,100 kilo cocaine, seized in the Rotterdam harbour. The drugs were hidden in a load of whiskey.
Authorities managed to uncover an international network involved in a series of coke transports from South America to Hong Kong, the Cape Verde Islands and the Netherlands.
