Organized crime used to be considered a remote threat in much of Western Europe, but ruthless violence by criminal gangs is now rattling the peace in some of the world’s safest societies.
Sweden now has Europe’s highest gun-homicide rate, and the military is helping police fight street gangs. In Denmark, residents of the commune Christiania shut their famed open-air cannabis market after violent gangs took over. In Belgium, armed security forces have started guarding customs trucks carrying seized cocaine to prevent criminals from stealing it back.
One of the most alarming exhibits of what the 21st-century drug trade has wrought upon long-peaceful European societies came earlier this year in the Netherlands, long known for its tolerant attitude toward recreational drugs.
Dutch drug kingpin Ridouan Taghi was considered so dangerous that he was tried in a warehouse-turned-bunker in Amsterdam, guarded by hundreds of masked special forces and drones circling overhead to prevent a prison break. When the judges pronounced him guilty of involvement in five murders and two attempted killings, their faces were hidden and their names weren’t revealed.
“He has managed to strike fear in the minds of people,” said Dutch lawmaker Ulysse Ellian about Taghi, who was sentenced to life in prison.
During the six-year legal proceeding that led to Taghi’s conviction, three people linked to the state’s star witness were shot dead in the streets of Amsterdam: his brother, his lawyer and a well-known crime journalist who had joined the witness’s legal team.
“We have seen murders before. What’s new about Taghi is that he also targets individuals who are not part of the criminal underworld: the brother of the star witness, a lawyer, a journalist,” said Robby Roks, associate professor of criminology at the Erasmus School of Law in Rotterdam. The case, he said, “raises all these questions about what these criminals with seemingly unlimited resources can do from prison.”
Late last month, Taghi’s 23-year-old son, Faissal, was extradited from the United Arab Emirates at the request of Dutch authorities on suspicions of participating in a criminal organization involved in international drug trafficking, money laundering and preparing violent crimes. He is now locked up in the same maximum-security prison as his father.
Ellian, a newly elected member of parliament, is pressing for dangerous prisoners to be cut off from other inmates and people outside. Without fast action “we’re taking huge risks,” he said. “The more of these top guys you arrest, the more urgent it becomes.”
A recent report by Europol, the law enforcement arm of the European Union, and EMCDDA, the EU’s drug agency, said several European countries are suffering “unprecedented levels of drug market-related violence, including killings, torture, kidnappings and intimidation.” The report identified 821 serious criminal networks active in the EU, with more than 25,000 members.
The EU now considers organized crime a threat to European societies on par with terrorism.
“Violence is destabilizing society and the social contract we have known,” said Europol deputy spokesperson Claire Georges. “It used to be more at transit points, such as airports, and among specific groups. Now, violence is increasingly spilling onto the streets with the risk of civilians being hurt.”
Europol attributes the violence to a globalization of the drug trade, a surge in coca cultivation in Colombia and a fragmentation of the supply chain. Gangs have established a firmer foothold in large European ports, including Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp-Bruges in Belgium.
In 2019, cocaine seizures in Europe exceeded those in North America for the first time, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. In 2021, the most recent year for which data is available, EU authorities seized more than 300 tons of cocaine, a record.
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