According to the public prosecutor, the 55-year-old resident of the farmyard in Hollandscheveld, where a drug lab was rounded up on September 3, 2020, should serve a prison sentence of 15 months. The lab was discovered in a log cabin in the yard.
The lab came into the picture during another criminal investigation. In that investigation into a drug lab, the agents cracked the encrypted messaging service EnchroChat. The criminals did not realize that the police were following along and spoke freely about a drug lab in Hollandscheveld.
During the September raid, it appeared to be a drug lab under construction. A 69-year-old man from Kiel-Windeweer and a 53-year-old man from Winschoten were busy installing electricity. Both said that they had been hired by the resident and they knew nothing about a drug lab.
The man from Winschoten is also suspected of setting up a drug lab in Blijham and Kerkenveld. The man in his sixties is still being prosecuted for the lab in Kiel-Windeweer, where a dead man was also found. These cases will later come before the court in Groningen. The lab in Hollandscheveld was intended for the production of crystal meth.
In the woods near the plot and in a horse trailer were pallets with dozens of bags of acids and soda, which served as raw materials for the drugs. According to the public prosecutor, the chat messages show that there was a working lab. Kilos of drugs that had been produced were reported. And about the farmer who complained about odor nuisance.
The drug dog struck at several locations on the property during the raid. The mast data shows that some of the chats were sent near the lab in Hollandscheveld. The address was mentioned in the messages. And one of the interlocutors, according to the prosecutor, can be attributed to the farmer.
This account, under the name of Noisy Star, set the rules around the farmyard lab. And threatened to shut off the power if they were not followed. The electricity came from the farm. The resident alone had the power to cut the power, the prosecutor said.
The suspect denies. He rented the log cabin to a woman who traded in clothes. A lease was found, in the name of a woman. She had paid the rent three times. The woman said she had not signed the contract. She paid the rent on behalf of others. She wouldn’t say who for fear. She hadn’t earned anything on this, she said.
In addition, the 17-year-old stepson of the suspect was also heard as a co-suspect. That case has since been dropped due to insufficient evidence (the boy will not be prosecuted). The public prosecutor strongly blames the fifty-year-old for not taking responsibility for what happened on his property.
The man blames everything on a vulnerable stepson, the prosecutor said. He only thought about the money he could earn. He didn’t worry for a second about his family, which he was endangering by having a drug lab built on the property. In addition, she also stopped at the passage of time.
The lawyer of the Hollandschevelder indicated that a large part of the evidence cannot be used. No phone with encrypted messages has ever been found with the suspect. According to the counsel, it is an assumption that those messages refer to the suspect’s property. “It talked about Mexicans. They were not in Hollandscheveld”.
She pleaded for acquittal. If it does come to a conviction, the punishment should take effect much later, she thinks.
The court will rule on July 4.