It was one of the largest drug seizures in Brabant in recent years. In total, more than 3,200 kilos of cocaine, in Klundert. The police secretly followed the suspects and arrested them. Eight people in total, from a garage owner to a sheep herder. On Monday, some suspects appeared at their first public hearing in court in Breda. “These aren’t the big boys,” several attorneys said. They want to talk about a ‘deal’ with the justice department.
It all started when the Zeeland-West-Brabant Seaport Police followed a group of men. It is not yet known how they discovered it. The men were importing a suspicious metal container. It had sailed from Colombia to the port of Antwerp and then entered our country.
Grinding
In mid-March this year, officers saw that the container was taken to a warehouse on Nijverheidweg in Klundert and driven inside. Men then walked in and out. They were opening the container with grinders or welding equipment. A difficult job, according to chat messages that the police intercepted.
Three days later a van drove away. Officers followed the car and checked it in Papendrecht. In a hidden room they found 688 kilos of cocaine. There was also a firearm in the car. The occupants were a man from Barcelona (45) and a man (30) born in Den Bosch.
Raid
An arrest team raided the warehouse in Klundert and found more than 2,500 kilos of cocaine. Officers arrested three men. Three more people were handcuffed in Bergen op Zoom, including a resident of that city.
Three of them were in court on Monday: the man from Den Bosch (30), the man from Bergen op Zoom (40) and a Rotterdam garage owner (45). They said nothing about the allegations. They would like to go home because of family and work.
‘Little ones’
The lawyers pointed out: these aren’t the big boys. “They are the workers, the little ones,” said one of them. Indeed, others have been ‘seen’. There were chats between men in the warehouse and someone calling himself ‘Edgar Davids’. There was also someone named ‘HH’ who kept an eye on the smuggling. Who they were may never be clarified.
One of the men – a painter – would earn 500 euros for a job commissioned by a certain Younes, his lawyer said. Another is illegal in the Netherlands. “He is a sheepherder from the Rif,” said his lawyer. The shepherd would only speak Moroccan and would normally herd sheep in the Rif region.
Deal?
The lawyers said that they want to talk to the public prosecutor about trial arrangements. They try to agree on an appropriate punishment. They then submit that ‘deal’ to the judges. These types of agreements are common in drug cases such as this and should prevent processes from taking a long time.
Several lawyers asked for release from pre-trial detention. The court will decide by Tuesday at the latest. The next hearing is already scheduled for shortly after the summer, which is why the judges asked for quick clarity about any trial agreements.
Wave of drug seizures
The municipality of Moerdijk was confronted with an unprecedented wave of cocaine discoveries in less than six months. In November 2025, 3,300 kilos were found in Standdaarbuiten.
In January, the largest find in years in Brabant followed: a batch of 4,830 kilos on the Moerdijk industrial estate, hidden in magnets. In February, customs intercepted 463 kilos destined for Moerdijk. In March there were more than 3200 kilos in Klundert (and Papendrecht) and shortly afterwards 1000 kilos turned up in Zevenbergen.
In total, almost 13 tons of cocaine, with a street value of roughly half a billion euros, at least
