Eight Colombian coke washers in his warehouse, but Hennie (70) from Overdinkel ‘knew nothing’ | Domestic

“I have nothing to hide,” says Hennie Heupink, as he walks to the warehouse behind his house. “Nothing.” The man opens the roller door, daylight shows thick black pipes and wooden cages. On the right is a shower unit, loosened insulation material dangles from the roof. This used to be his workshop, he says. “But now I’d rather not come here.”

It is Monday morning, five days after officers from the Special Interventions Service on the Goormatenweg in Overdinkel entered the yard with their weapons drawn to roll up a large cocaine laundry. The drug location was discovered by chance.

Officers had received tips about a ‘strange paint smell’ on and near the yard. Upon arrival they encountered a man in a white suit who did not speak Dutch. All alarm bells went off, five hours and a huge operation later, ten suspects – including Hennie’s son Jeroen – were arrested and transferred to the regional police detention complex in Borne.

Heupink – who lives in the adjacent house – saw it all happen. He describes it as ‘a great horror film’. “The police first walked to the back, then I called my son. ‘Jeroen, those people want to be in that shed.’ But I no longer had a key, so I gave it to that gentleman.”

‘That gentleman’ is a man from the former Yugoslavia, to whom Heupink had rented the warehouse a few months earlier. The contact was made via email, the story was that he would use the space for the storage of solar panels. It seemed okay, it was ‘a good, normal rental contract’, according to Heupink. He didn’t get too much money for it.

Now he says he knows he was abused. “I think they had already looked at it all here. I’m alone here, I have little money (Heupink’s own company went bankrupt in 2019, he has debts, ed.) and I can just about pay the electricity costs.” He sighs. “Then you are of course easy prey.”

Heupink has now walked to the room at the back of the warehouse, where there are six bunk beds. There are clothes and blankets everywhere, towels hang to dry on a wire, and a box of groceries sits on a broken chest of drawers. There is a rack with jars of oregano, garlic and meat herbs; an ironing board – with two electric hobs on it – serves as a countertop.

Heupink does not know how long the Colombian drug washers have worked, slept and eaten here, but he estimates since September: in that month he himself spent ten days with his girlfriend in Latvia. “I think they repaired it while I was gone.”

Just before, in the living room, the resident of Overdinkel, with a plate of warmed stew on his lap, had already sworn that he knew nothing about the Colombians. “I never saw anything, not during the day, not at night. Not really. A Volkswagen Caddy sometimes went that way, but then I thought they were bringing some material for those solar panels. But other than that… I didn’t go outside at all.”

He suffers from prostate cancer, he says, everything goes slowly and with difficulty. “I do nothing other than buy old clocks for a few bucks and then restore them.” He gets up from his chair and leads the way to the bedroom, where more than twenty timepieces already hang above the bed. “I have more than two hundred.”

Then he points to a display cabinet in the corner, which contains the urn containing his deceased wife’s ashes. After the discovery on Wednesday, the police ‘pulled everywhere’, says Hennie. “Also personal things from her that I had never opened before. They came in with dogs.” To look for drugs? Hennie nods. “Or money. They turned everything upside down, it was a big mess after that.”

In his house, but also in the warehouse. All material used for the coke washing facility has now been removed. Until it was gone, it was guarded by heavily armed men and for good reason; the coke is said to represent a value of around 50 million euros, although both the police and the Public Prosecution Service do not want to comment on this at the moment. Other questions to the police and the judiciary also remain unanswered.

Heupink stayed with his daughter during those days, and he returned home this weekend. He says he is not a suspect in the case, but he has been interrogated, “and maybe they will come again.” It is unjustified that his son is in custody, says Hennie. “That boy has nothing to do with it at all. His wife is completely destroyed, and his two children… If they want a victim, take me. I have already lost everything, my comrades, everything.”

Perhaps, he says, while walking across the grounds, the people in the warehouse kept slipping in through the back. There is a path through the woods that borders a road; whoever wants, can go straight through. “You can also go to the Capitol (the tug-of-war association that has had a home on its premises since the 1980s, ed.). That’s eating whole eggs.”

When this is over, he doesn’t want to stay here another minute, he says. “I want to leave as soon as possible. To Germany.” Now he mainly hopes that ‘his boy’ will be released, he sounds emotional, before he goes back inside. “If I don’t see him anymore, then it’s no longer necessary for me. Then I will put an end to it myself.”