The Public Prosecution Service (OM) has demanded up to 9 years in prison against eleven suspects who are associated with smuggling drugs via puzzle boxes. The suspects are between 25 and 60 years old and come from Beverwijk, Haarlem, Heemskerk, Lelystad, Utrecht, Wormerveer and Velserbroek. The group is suspected of co-perpetrating large-scale and worldwide online trade in mainly XTC and cocaine via postal parcels.
A special discovery was made in the municipality of Hollands Kroon in April 2020: a father discovers a bag full of hundreds ecstasy pills in a puzzle box which his children had just received from their grandmother. The puzzle had an unknown sender at the time. For that reason, the toy had been sitting unused in a shed for four years, until the grandmother decided to give it to her grandchildren.
Customs already had their sights on the trade in hard drugs through puzzles. In 2016, puzzles containing synthetic drugs were intercepted at Schiphol. After investigation, it turned out that an international company was operating, run by several people. Suspects were arrested for this in 2016 and 2017.
The OM was able to seize a total of more than 150 kilos of (mainly) hard drugs, together with tens of thousands of euros in cash, counting machines, vehicles and chemicals used to make synthetic drugs.
‘Oiled business management’
The Public Prosecution Service suspects all suspects of carrying out an illegal business plan. For example, there was a professionally set up and internationally operating online store, with a wide range of narcotics. Under the name Dear Santa, the ‘company’ had well-oiled business operations, such as the rental of business space, a marketing strategy and the publication of sales conditions on the dark web.
“It was a legal online store, but even more complicated,” said the public prosecutor during the hearing. “The suspects had to protect their trade from the investigative services.” They did this, for example, with the use of the dark web and encrypted communication. “It didn’t have to be noticed so they kept changing postal agencies and using fake names, fake senders and innocent deck cargo.”
Suspects
During the investigation, eleven men came into the picture who are held responsible for the trade. They all had their own role and task. The ‘CEO’ is a 28-year-old man from Velserbroek. He was responsible for customer contacts. A 30-year-old man from Beverwijk and a 31-year-old man from Wormerveer did the customer contacts. The packages were sent each time via different postal agencies by a 29-year-old man from Beverwijk and a now 25-year-old man from Utrecht.
After the investigative services were on the trail of Dear Santa and there was an arrest and searches in 2016, the ‘company’ remained active. The 28-year-old CEO continued to recruit new employees from Velserbroek. These were the other four suspects: men aged 27, 28, 29 and 60 from Lelystad.
The highest sentence has been demanded against the man from Velserbroek: 9 years in prison. The co-defendants heard a demand of up to 90 months with deductions against them.