The North Holland court has a lot to do with drug couriers, because Schiphol is located within the region. According to the court, these couriers often transport relatively small amounts of drugs and are very low in the criminal rankings. Compared to leaders in the circuit, their punishments would therefore be above average.
Court of Appeal must make a decision
The Public Prosecution Service therefore does not agree with this. They want the court to look at the new sentence that the court wants to use. Couriers with a total weight of 1.5 kilos would then receive a maximum of 8 months in prison.
Up to 5 kilos of drugs is a prison sentence of two years, and for a maximum of 20 kilos of illegal substances, the court wants a sentence of 3 years.
These penalties are considerably lower than what is currently the standard. A Colombian man should have actually been sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday for smuggling five kilos of cocaine, but the ruling left him with two years.
It is not yet known when the Public Prosecution Service’s appeal will be processed.