Drug criminal Piet Costa sentenced to fifteen years

The court of Rotterdam sentenced Roger P. (50), alias Piet Costa, to fifteen years in prison on Monday for “the importation of large consignments of cocaine, preparatory acts, money laundering and participation in a criminal organization”. Six others have been sentenced to between three and eight years in prison. Earlier this year, the Public Prosecution Service had demanded seventeen years and nine months against P.

P. was arrested mid-2020 after a police investigation into a shipment of more than 3,700 kilos of cocaine that was intercepted in the port of Rotterdam in 2016. Other suspects have already been brought to court in recent years, but enough evidence against P. had only been collected after the police obtained decrypted messages in which he spoke about his drug trade. P. was also on trial for money laundering and two other cocaine transports – together he transported almost 6,000 kilos of drugs with the three transports.

The judge ruled that Piet Costa and his organization had an “extremely disruptive influence on society”. He has involved and “corrupted” others in his criminal affairs. That is not only “harmful to (trust in) the rule of law, it also costs society enormous amounts of money,” the judge wrote. The taxpayer has to afford that, while “suspects and his followers bathe in luxury, without paying a cent in tax on their profits.”

Torture container

In February, the Public Prosecution Service already demanded twelve years in prison against P. in another case: he is suspected of having led a criminal organization that focused on preparing serious violent crimes, kidnapping and kidnapping. Central to that case is a torture container complex that the organization built under his leadership in the North Brabant village of Wouwse Plantage. The container was intended for its rivals, the police concluded from messages sent via crypto communication service Encrochat.

Whether P. will actually be sentenced to the twelve years demanded in that case is partly related to Monday’s ruling. Due to the so-called ‘concurrence arrangement’ that applies in the Netherlands, criminal offenses discovered in the same period may not be added together. Now that Costa has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by the court in Rotterdam, the sentence imposed in the case surrounding the torture container could be lower.