The Hague criminal Piet S. is quite willing to provide some explanation about the street language in the tens of thousands of intercepted chat messages. M? “That’s ecstasy” Dad? “I think money.” Hitchhike? “That’s putting something in a container that doesn’t belong there.”
But the closer the court gets to the suspicion that will be heard on Monday – Piet S.’ leading role in 2017 in the import via the port of Antwerp of 4,600 kilos of cocaine (or 4,600 ‘loaves’) – the less he has to report. “I don’t know anything about loaves of bread and cocaine,” he says. That he is the man behind those tons of cocaine, S. calls “utter nonsense”.
Piet S. (66) is the main suspect in the Taxus criminal case, which started substantively on Monday, will last until July and for which no fewer than 45 court days have been set aside. In that period, besides Piet S., another 26 people are on trial, including his son Freddy and nephew Simon. They are prosecuted for partly overlapping offences: from the importation and trade in cocaine, heroin, crystal meth and hashish, to assault, bribery, possession of firearms and money laundering. Overarching is the membership of the crime organization of which Piet S. was the leader.
S., who previously served years of imprisonment partly for hashish smuggling, even states that he has been criminally retired for fifteen years. “I thought it was enough in prison.” There is a logical explanation for the fact that his name pops up frequently in the criminal circuit and that the judiciary links him to numerous criminal offenses. Until his arrest, S. would have fulfilled a role as a mediator in the underworld.
The germ of this lies with the Wild West shooting in Amsterdam’s Staatsliedenbuurt, which introduced the Netherlands to the ‘Mocro Mafia’ in 2012. Five criminal groups, which were not involved in the shooting, suddenly saw the importance of keeping peace between them.
And according to Piet S., they then asked four criminal heavyweights to mediate in conflicts in the criminal circuit, for example about money, against payment of tens of thousands of euros. “Violence doesn’t solve anything, everyone gets into trouble because of it,” according to S., is the rationale behind the plan. He would have been asked because he had “a good name” in the world. When asked who else acted as mediators or who can confirm his role, he was unable to answer: “I don’t talk about other people.”
For the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague, Taxus – a genus of conifers – is one of the largest criminal cases ever. For more than four years, research has been conducted into the crime organization around Piet S., which has roots in the caravan scene and is also known as ‘De Dikke’.
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The investigation started in 2016 with the aim of mapping Piet S.’s crime organization. The police and judiciary spared no effort in this.
For example, eavesdropping equipment was placed in the ‘man cave‘ which the group used in the garage of a car company in Uithoorn and an extensive undercover operation was set up in collaboration with the police in Spain – where S. often stayed. According to the judiciary, this led to the bribe of a so-called corrupt customs officer by S. Crucial for the evidence are also the thousands of hacked chat messages from the criminal communication service Encrochat.
The Taxus case has some frayed edges. For example, during the investigation, the illegal gambling site Edobet was also encountered, where several well-known (former) football players would have gambled. It AD revealed a year and a half ago that Dirk Kuijt and Wesley Sneijder were interrogated after they gambled via Edobet, Sneijder denied that. Piet S. would be entitled to a small part of the Edobet income and have collection work carried out for the company. That is why he is also being prosecuted for violation of the Betting and Gaming Act.
In addition – and that is grist to the mill of the lawyers of the suspects – there is a significant stain on the important undercover operation in Spain. While a Spanish undercover played a corrupt customs officer, his supervisor and a colleague actually turned out to be corrupt. The Spanish agents were on the payroll of another criminal organization. A large part of the Spanish police documents are signed by the corrupt manager, something that the lawyers of Piet S. and associates will not fail to emphasize.
However, those are topics for the coming weeks and months. The criminal case was kicked off with Piet S.’ alleged role in the importation of 4,600 kilos of cocaine. The judiciary also wants to deprive S. – who has no assets on paper – of more than 60 million euros in criminal profit because of this smuggling.
Piet S. walked into the courtroom on Monday with a crutch in his hand and a gray face. He has had health problems for a long time. He did not take the morphine prescribed to him especially for the court. “Otherwise I cannot follow you.”
He emphatically distanced himself from his involvement in coke smuggling, although he acknowledged that he operated in an environment in which coke smuggling is going on. For example, he presented himself as a ‘company doctor’ who sold fruit companies that could then be smuggled by others. He also spoke about contacts in Colombia in the banana trade: a frequently used deck cargo in drug transports.
He reacted indignantly when the court read out important evidence: chat conversations between two German criminals who boasted about what Piet told them about the 4,600 kilo drug transport. That he would discuss such a thing with two gentlemen he barely knows is contrary to all criminal mores. “You’re not going to tell people you’ve seen a few times, are you? That’s dangerous: because of the police and because of thieves who will kill you [voor de cocaïne] murder. It really makes no sense.”