Ten Colombians were arrested last year in a remote warehouse in the polder between Steenbergen and Kruisland. They camped around a cocaine laundry. The men claim that they have been lured to our country with sweet talk, but the police and judiciary do not believe that. The suspects told their story in a packed court. They have diverse backgrounds such as gold miner, coffee planter and even musician. And they can make coke, thinks the prosecutor who demanded four years in prison.
The drug lab was a fluke. The FIOD followed a truck and suspected cigarette smuggling. When inspectors entered the warehouse on the Boonhil on March 31 last year, they unexpectedly encountered ten men. They were handcuffed. A sickening chemical stench escaped.
Gypsy wagon
The Colombians lived in the shed. Seven of them slept in a mobile home, a gypsy wagon, three others in dome tents. Surrounded by barrels, barrels and jerry cans. Thousands of liters of chemical substances were stored in the warehouse. Inside were three rooms for drug production. There was also a boiler with heating tubes. More than 66 kilos of cocaine was ready.
All ten defendants said the same thing in court. An ‘unknown person’ had approached them for a well-paid job in Europe. They set out from sometimes remote villages in the Colombian rainforest. In their own words to clean, as a kitchen aid, to help in the potato trade or to paint in construction.
God
Mario (39) expected 20 to 30 euros per hour for painting. “In Colombia you earn that in a week. Work is scarce.” Jorge (33) said that he dreams of a singing career: “I can sing very well. God gave me that talent.”
The suspects have first names like Jesus, Diego, William and Luis. Jose is the oldest at 67 years old. They are construction workers, a taxi driver, but also a coffee planter and gold miner. Many have families with children. All said they would like to go home, some were in tears.
“What are we doing here?”
Last year, most of them first traveled to Spain and then via Paris to the Netherlands. “25 hours on the bus”, one of them sighed. The judges were amazed all day long about that long journey. “All to come and clean here?” Jesus (43) came for the potatoes, but there were no potatoes to be found in that entire shed. There were nine compatriots. One of the judges asked: “Then the first question is: what are we doing here guys?”
As in other coke cases, lawyers say the suspects are actually victims of “modern slavery.” But there is no evidence for that, says the public prosecutor. “If you really got your leg off, then you are with ten men and then you leave, don’t you? They just stayed because they knew what they were doing here.”
interpreting
The process was slow because two interpreters had to translate everything. The ten interrogations alone lasted nearly six hours.
The Steenberg cocaine laundry only existed for a short time. Based on the waste and some notes found, the public prosecutor thinks that 127 kilos of coke was made. “Enough for 368,000 user quantities. So in two weeks, street value has been made for nine million euros.”
The owners of the warehouse say they knew nothing about the lab. The tenant also denies that he knew anything. The suspects’ lawyers will speak on Friday.
In recent years, the police discovered at least 20 coke laundries, such as in Lepelstraat and St Willebrord.