cross-posted from: https://exploding-heads.com/post/30396
Criminals are threatening people to get their way - influencing everyone from local politicians, entrepreneurs, civil servants, journalists and lawyers, according to the report.
In 2021, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was placed under police protection in response to fears over an attack by the Morco Mafia - which France24 describes as a North African criminal organization tied to cocaine trafficking.
The group operates out of the Netherlands and Belgium and controls a third of all cocaine traffic in Europe. One police union chief said in 2019 that the Netherlands was becoming a narco-state. The 2014 novel “Mocro Maffia”, co-authored by Marijn Schrijver and Wouter Laumans, coined the term and brought the criminal gang to the public’s attention, recounting how a group of Moroccan jewellery thieves in Amsterdam created one of Europe’s most powerful criminal organisations. After its success in the Netherlands, the book was made into a TV series.