Armed police in Paris have detained a man suspected of being a leading member of an Amsterdam-based drugs cartel nicknamed the “Mocro Mafia”. He had fled to the French capital to avoid arrest.
An international arrest warrant had been issued by the Netherlands for the Moroccan citizen, who is about 30 years old and named by The Times newspaper as Said A. He was ambushed by several members of the French gendarme elite unit GIGN as he left a restaurant, with stunned bystanders looking on. The arrest on Tuesday took place without a struggle, police said.
“This is a very big fish that we’ve netted,” an investigator told the newspaper, speaking on condition of anonymity. “His arrest is going to be a blow to the Mocro Mafia.”
The Mocro Mafia – a name derived from the crime group's mainly Moroccan and Antillean origins – is suspected of distributing cocaine and synthetic drugs across Europe from its bases in the Netherlands and Belgium, and of having close links to the Latin American drug trade. Its members are also suspected of involvement in a number of murders.
Investigators consider the suspect detained Tuesday to be a key member of the syndicate. He is wanted on suspicion of drug dealing and the production of synthetic drugs. He is to appear before a judge with a view to extraditing him to the Netherlands, a source said.
His arrest comes as part of a new crackdown against drug-related crime in France, which prompted the torching of four police vehicles outside a police station in an apparent revenge attack. The vehicles were reduced to burnt-out wrecks in the southern town of Cavaillon where security forces are now enforcing a nationwide operation against drug crime. No one was injured.
In February, Ridouan Taghi, another leader of the drugs cartel, was sentenced to life in jail for his part in a murderous campaign in the Netherlands, which prosecutors described as a "well-oiled killing machine”. Taghi, 46, the Moroccan-born mastermind of the Amsterdam-based group, was one of Europe's most-wanted men when he was captured in Dubai in 2019.
During his trial, one of the largest in the Netherlands’ legal history, Taghi and 16 alleged drug cartel members faced six counts of murder and attempted murder – including ordering at least 13 hits – between 2015 and 2017, mainly against people suspected of becoming police informants. Taghi and two others were given life sentences.
An international arrest warrant had been issued for Taghi in 2018 and officials offered a €100,000 ($118,200) reward for his capture. The breakthrough came when a cross-border operation was launched with Dubai Police, after officials received a tip-off he was in the Middle East. It led to a 10-day stakeout at the luxury villa hideout of the Moroccan-Dutch crime lord.
Officials in Belgium say the gang runs its drug operations in Amsterdam and the majority of the cocaine arriving in the Belgian port of Antwerp is then taken to the Netherlands. Latest UN figures show most of Europe's illegal drugs are smuggled through Belgium, with a turnover of up to €130 billion a year.
