A prison sentence of two years has been demanded against a 58-year-old Vietnamese woman from Amsterdam for exploiting a compatriot. A 63-year-old man from Meppel, also of Vietnamese descent, would have to serve a year and a half for his role.
According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), both let a Vietnamese woman work in appalling conditions in a weed farm in Wittelte. The woman was forced to take care of the nearly four thousand cuttings and 350 hemp plants. The agents discovered her on December 16, 2020 while rolling up the nursery.
‘Inhuman accommodation’
The woman lived in an unheated shed for almost three months. The inside temperature was the same as outside. The woman slept in a cramped caravan in the shed. A chair with a hole in it and a bucket under it was her toilet. There was a small dirty kitchen, where the gas pipe had been laid dangerously, the prosecutor said. The woman had no papers and was staying in the Netherlands illegally.
Previous hemp farm
Shortly before the raid, the police confiscated the telephone of the owner of the shed. This had to do with an earlier discovery of a cannabis farm in the same building. As part of that investigation, the telephone of the property owner was read. It contained messages indicating a new nursery in the building.
The police decided to invade and hit four people, including the Amsterdam woman and the victim. A Vietnamese girlfriend of the Amsterdam woman and a Vietnamese from the Czech Republic were also present in the warehouse. The girlfriend will not be prosecuted, the investigation into the Czech Vietnamese is still ongoing. The four persons spoke little or no Dutch.
The 34-year-old owner of the warehouse, a 32-year-old man from Hoogeveen and a 40-year-old resident of Emmen were also arrested. They will appear in court on Friday.
To look after children
During the police investigation it soon became clear that there was criminal exploitation, also known as human trafficking. The Vietnamese woman who was staying illegally in the Netherlands indicated that she was forced to work in the cannabis farm. She was taken to Wittelte via the Amsterdamse under the guise of ‘looking after children’.
She was taken to the shed by the Meppeler and was not allowed to leave it. In her eyes, the sixties were the boss. He communicated with the Dutch suspects. The woman also said that she was threatened by the resident of Emmen. He forced her to work. If she didn’t, he’d show his fists.
New nursery
The warehouse was also rented to the man from Emmen. He wanted to set up a hemp farm there again to brush off the debts of his previously wound up plantation. De Hoogevener would be involved in this. Their first new breeding seemed to fail. Around that period they came into contact with Vietnamese.
One of them was the 63-year-old suspect from Meppel, who was still living in Emmen at the time, and a Vietnamese man from the Czech Republic. The Czech would eventually have invested 10,000 euros in the nursery in Wittelte. He would have borrowed money from his girlfriend in Amsterdam. It is suspected that this woman provided a permanent caretaker within the nursery.
‘Amsterdam handed out sheets’
Several people involved stated that the Amsterdam woman called the shots. She was interpreted by her niece, a 46-year-old Vietnamese woman from Utrecht. She also stood before the court in Assen today. A community service order of 120 hours was demanded against her, of which 40 hours were suspended.
The roles of the Amsterdam and Meppeller are considerably larger in the eyes of the Public Prosecution Service. The public prosecutor also finds it proven that the Amsterdam woman is guilty of money laundering. “There were large cash deposits that cannot be explained from a legal source,” the prosecutor said.
Weapon with silencer
The woman had virtually no legal income, but she had several homes to her name, the prosecutor said. According to him, she had a luxurious lifestyle. In the shed of her home, the officers found a weapon, with ammunition and a silencer. Her DNA was on the weapon, mixed with someone else’s genetic cell material.
Only the woman from Utrecht acknowledged that she took on the role of interpreter while setting up the nursery. The suspects from Amsterdam and Meppel deny in all tones. Despite the clean criminal record, the prosecutor believes that a strong signal should be sent to society.
In addition to the prison sentences, he also demanded that the Amsterdam woman pay back nearly three hundred thousand illegally earned money to the state. It is not yet known when the court will rule.