Amid the roar of the planes landing and taking off at Schiphol’s Kaagbaan runway on Saturday, November 30, an officer rings a doorbell in the village of Rijsenhout. The police heard through Report Crime Anonymous that fireworks may be present at this address, which is reason for a home visit.
The Fireworks Decree stipulates that the police may “look around while searching”. It is not a real search: opening a locked cupboard without the resident’s permission is not allowed, but looking around is.
That appears to be sufficient in this case. 43 kilos of heavy fireworks are found in the house: 618 Cobras. One of the residents is arrested and released a day later after questioning. It’s a lot, 618 Cobras. But this find is not that unusual.
In November alone, more than 22,000 kilos of illegal fireworks were seized, the Public Prosecution Service reports Fireworks barometer. Over the past five years, an average of more than 100,000 kilos of fireworks have been seized annually. According to the police, this is only 5 to 10 percent of the total amount of illegal fireworks in the Netherlands. These figures indicate that in the Netherlands between one and two million kilos of fireworks are traded per year by people who do not have a permit for this. This not only concerns heavy fireworks such as the Cobra, but also all kinds of decorative fireworks.
But especially the Cobra, an Italian-produced ‘flashbanger‘, is receiving a lot of attention, due to the fact that, like other heavy fireworks, they are increasingly being used to commit attacks, including on homes. Police figures show that the use of fireworks as bombs, whether or not in combination with gasoline, has increased almost fivefold in recent years: from 216 in 2021 to 804 in 2023. The police expect that the number of attacks with fireworks bombs will rise to more than the 1,000. However, fireworks are not always the only ones used, as the investigation into the attack in the Tarwekamp district of The Hague shows.
Attacks with fireworks bombs are a phenomenon that does not or hardly occur elsewhere in Europe, according to a recent police report on underworld violence. Figures show a striking correlation between the increasing use of explosives and the decreasing number of liquidations in recent years. It appears that the criminal environment has changed its strategy when it comes to settling conflicts.
In doing so, criminals have introduced a model that is being followed elsewhere. According to the police, at least one in three fireworks attacks has nothing to do with organized crime, but revolves around conflicts between rival entrepreneurs, for example. The police partly explain the ease with which firework bombs are used by the wide availability and relatively low price of a Cobra – usually sold for 15 euros per pack of three.
Where do all those fireworks come from? And why is it so difficult for the judiciary and the police to curb the illegal use of fireworks? “The illegal use of heavy fireworks has been accepted for decades,” said prosecutor Karin Broere. “Because of this fireworks culture, the danger is underestimated.”
German bunker
You have to pay attention to a red container full of Cobras – a local police officer from Hengelo was told in November 2017. The container is delivered to Muni Berka, a military bunker complex just across the border in Germany.
That tip from 2017 led, according to a ruling by the Amsterdam court from the beginning of this year to the discovery of more than eighty thousand kilos of fireworks – Cobras, Roman candles and boxes of decorative fireworks. And to a criminal organization that is guilty of “illegal trade in professional fireworks”.
The court previously sentenced the main suspect to a prison sentence of eighteen months for fireworks trafficking, six of which were conditional. A second suspect only receives 240 hours of community service, partly because he has no criminal record.
The fact that this criminal case dragged on for almost seven years says something about the complexity of the investigation into the illegal trade in fireworks. These are well-organized criminal networks. One group does the importing, another does the smuggling and another sells to customers.
In that sense, the organization behind the fireworks trade resembles that of drug crime. But there is also a big difference: where drugs are illegal, fireworks are in principle not. Anyone with a so-called pyrotechnic permit may possess, use and trade fireworks. The rules for this are laid down in the ”pyro directiveof the European Union.
Due to tampering and deception with purchase, storage and transport documents, legally purchased fireworks regularly disappear into the illegal circuit. These legal fireworks are often imported from China by companies based in Albania and Poland, among others.
If one cobra goes off in a box, they all go off at the same time
Middlemen usually store the fireworks in Belgium and Germany, in old military bunkers. That storage is usually the place where the legal and illegal circuits come together. It can happen that fireworks are resold illegally from a legal storage location, according to a report reporting from 2021.
There are two categories of buyers. Private individuals, to whom Cobras are not allowed to be sold anyway, and traders who smuggle large consignments to the Netherlands and sell them here illegally. According to the police, these traders are often also involved in the trade in fake clothing or the smuggling of cigarettes. Private individuals can sometimes buy fireworks via websites and collect them in Germany.
“The paradoxical problem with fireworks such as Cobras is that there are actually no known legal users in the Netherlands,” says prosecutor Karin Broere, who has a lot of experience with fireworks cases. Organizers of fireworks shows, for example, do not use these types of fireworks, says Broere. “So there is no legal market for a product that is produced legally. That is difficult to explain, given the problems with the Cobra in the Netherlands.”
The explosive component of a Cobra is called flash powder, a mixture of aluminum powder and potassium perchlorate. The power of flash powder is comparable to military explosives such as TNT, says explosives expert Jan Dalmolen of the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI).
“What makes fireworks with flash powder extra dangerous is that they are very sensitive to ignition,” explains Dalmolen. “Static electricity released by friction of certain types of clothing can be sufficient. Moreover, flash powder is a mass explosive: if one Cobra goes off in a box, they all go off at the same time. This is not the case with fireworks containing gunpowder.”
Cross section Cobra 6
Pressure wave
That is why Cobras and other ‘flashbangers‘ with flash powder so dangerous. For example, the 618 Cobras found in Rijsenhout together contain an estimated twelve to fifteen kilos of flash powder. “If it explodes, everyone within a radius of a few meters will almost certainly die from the pressure wave,” says Dalmolen. “Everyone within a radius of ten to fifteen meters will sustain serious to very serious injuries from the pressure wave and flying material.”
According to Dalmolen, it is difficult to estimate whether the house in Rijsenhout could withstand such an explosion. “That depends on specific circumstances such as the distance from the core of the explosion to load-bearing walls, for example. It is certain that such an explosion will cause major damage.”
An additional point of concern is that in addition to the most commonly found Cobra 6, loaded with 20 to 25 grams of flash powder, a Cobra 8 is now also being made with 200 grams of flash powder. And under a different brand name a ‘flashbanger‘ sold containing 700 grams of flash powder.
Not only the storage, but also the transport of the fireworks entails enormous risks, says Dalmolen. “We did an experiment at the NFI with a car with approximately one to one and a half kilos of flash powder in the trunk; about sixty Cobras type 6 or five to six Cobras type 8. Nothing was left of that car. The chance that the occupants will survive such an explosion is nil.”
Firearms Act
Due to the rapidly increasing number of attacks involving explosives, Minister of Justice and Security David van Weel (VVD) wants to bring heavy firecrackers under the Firearms Act. According to the minister, this has a deterrent effect and will lead to heavier penalties.
The Public Prosecution Service thinks differently about this. “My experience is that the existing legislation is sufficient to combat the illegal trade in fireworks,” says Broere. She advocates more and better international cooperation. “You see that they are becoming stricter in Germany, because flash powder is being used more and more often in explosive attacks. Because a lot of fireworks are stored there, we in the Netherlands benefit from this strictness.”
Broere also hopes that it will be possible to reach an agreement in a European context on the maximum load of fireworks. “If that succeeds, all fireworks above the maximum will become illegal. Then you can think of, for example, 5 grams. That has a direct impact on the street.” She also hopes for a European fireworks pass for all companies and people that have a pyrotechnic permit. “Then it will be much more difficult to buy 600 Cobras somewhere unseen.”