The Public Prosecution Service suspects Jacobus H. (32) of having laundered 4.8 million euros. He is also said to have traded in speed and plans to produce crystal meth, among other things. H. was lifted from his bed in January by an arrest team at a trailer park in Heerhugowaard, according to his lawyer on the basis of questionable evidence.
This became apparent this morning in the court of Haarlem, where H. had to appear in an interim hearing. His family and relatives sit in the back of the room, where the short-shaven thirty-year-old takes place on the suspect’s bench, next to his lawyer.
It is now more than three months after the massive police action in seven places in the Netherlands: a car dealership in Opmeer and caravans in Heerhugowaard, among others, were turned upside down on 25 January. That can also be seen on images from NH News.
H. is home early that morning and is being taken away. Police find cash, a weapon and ammunition in his home. It turns out that the 32-year-old Jacobus, born in Alkmaar, is linked by the justice system to the alleged largest drug lab that was once rolled up in Belgium.
In the summer of 2020, the authorities discovered raw materials for almost 2,000 kilos of speed in a pigsty in Lendelede. Eight people were then arrested: H. would have been involved for two months.
4.8 million
In addition, H. would have taken preparatory acts to produce crystal meth for at least a year, from March 2020 to March 2021. According to the Public Prosecution Service, there are also indications that H. laundered 145 bitcoins (worth more than 4 million euros) and 370,000 euros in cash. How did the Public Prosecution Service track down the Waarder? Cracked chat messages.
According to H.’s lawyer – Alexander Admiraal – the judiciary thinks it can match a username on a device with incriminating apps with his client, partly because data shows that the phone was close to his caravan camp in Heerhugowaard.
An image of a wallet with bitcoins worth millions of euros. In addition, on the day of H.’s birthday, a message was sent to that telephone with a congratulation. In addition to the fact that Admiral does not find this sufficient evidence, he denounces the way in which the judiciary has come to those cracked messages.
Cracked chat messages
A few years ago, in collaboration with the French authorities, a network of some 20 million encrypted messages was hacked: criminals use this type of service. Justice now has tens of thousands of users – with associated chats – and they try to link them to people.
Allegedly incriminating messages are presented as evidence in many cases and are sometimes decisive for the decision of judges. But lawyers question the way this information was obtained, partly because of the privacy, completeness and the way France works.
In this recent podcast Willem You can hear more about this from journalists Harry Mensink and Marian Husken. †Cracked crypto, how solid is that as proof?†
Admiraal lawyer indicated today in court that he wants to investigate the legality of this evidence about H.. He also wants to hear the suspects of the ‘drug stable’ in Belgium. “Whether they know my client, as the judiciary states,” he tells NH Nieuws afterwards.
He believes that Jacobus H. should be allowed to wait for the further investigation at home, with his family. The judge will decide that tonight. The officer states that the investigation into H. has been completed and, as far as she is concerned, a substantive hearing can take place in July: according to her, there is a real chance that H. will go wrong again, so she wants him to remain in custody.
shut up
Jacobus H. himself invokes his right to remain silent with regard to the drug suspicions, but declares about the gun in his home that he had bought to protect family: his father was brutally robbed some time ago.
In another investigation, that early morning of January 25, a 54-year-old man from Heerhugowaard was also arrested on suspicion of fraud with odometers. He was released shortly after his arrest. That investigation is still ongoing.