How Dutch Trade History Shaped Modern Drug Trafficking

Name: Europe's drug mafia (1/2) - How drugs made the Netherlands rich | DW Documentary
Uploaded: 2026-05-21T16:00:23+00:00
Duration: 43 min 46 s
Channel: DW Documentary
Description: Summary and key takeaways on How Dutch Trade History Shaped Modern Drug Trafficking, covering The Current Crisis Violence linked to organized crime spreads

DW Documentary

May 21, 2026

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43 min video

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2 min read

YouTube video ID: OagsSY1G0-g

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Violence linked to organized crime spreads from major ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp to smaller Dutch towns. Shootouts and torture incidents illustrate how criminal networks have entrenched themselves in everyday life. The Marengo trial, running from 2019 to 2024, reveals deep connections between street criminals, business figures, and mafia bosses. Fear permeates the proceedings, evident in the assassination of a witness’s lawyer and a journalist.

Historical Foundations

The Dutch Republic built a global trade network that controlled markets for spices, tobacco, and sugar. The Dutch East India Company (VOC), founded in 1602, operated as the first joint‑stock company and functioned as a powerful commercial enterprise independent of the state. The Dutch state monopolized opium in the Dutch East Indies, using the drug’s profits to finance colonial administration.

20th Century Shift

In 1900 the NCF cocaine factory opened in Amsterdam, directly competing with German manufacturers. After World War I, the Hague Opium Convention criminalized substances that had previously been sold over the counter. This legal change created a modern black market for opiates and cocaine, shifting profit from legitimate merchants to illicit traffickers.

Counterculture and the Coffee Shop Model

The 1960s hippie trail uncovered hashish production in Morocco’s Rif Mountains, feeding a growing European demand. The 1976 revision of the Opium Law introduced a “separation of markets” strategy, aiming to keep cannabis users away from hard drugs such as heroin. Coffee shops gained permission to sell small amounts of cannabis legally (the “front door”), while the supply chain remained illegal (the “back door”). This loophole forces shop owners to purchase cannabis from criminal networks, giving traffickers a reliable market.

Professionalization of Crime

Klaas Bruinsma transformed the hashish trade into a corporate‑style operation, emphasizing logistics, quality control, and sophisticated money‑laundering. By 1995 the Netherlands produced roughly 75 % of the world’s ecstasy, synthesizing about 20 million pills each month. Drug money routinely mingles with the legal economy, as high‑profile criminals attend charity galas alongside royalty and invest in real estate, finance, and legitimate businesses.

Mechanisms Explained

The “back door” loophole separates legal sales from illegal sourcing, compelling coffee‑shop owners to rely on criminal suppliers. The “separation of markets” policy attempts to protect public health by keeping soft‑drug consumption distinct from hard‑drug environments. The corporate criminal model replaces opportunistic street crime with a structured business that employs division of labor, professional logistics, tax lawyers, and real‑estate investments to launder profits.

Takeaways

Violence linked to organized crime now spreads from major ports to smaller Dutch towns, as shown by the Marengo trial’s exposure of deep criminal ties.
The Dutch East India Company’s global trade network and state opium monopoly laid the economic foundation for later drug trafficking.
The Hague Opium Convention criminalized previously legal substances, creating a modern black market that shifted profit to illicit traffickers.
The 1976 Opium Law’s separation of markets created a legal front for coffee shops while forcing them to obtain cannabis through illegal back‑door channels.
Klaas Bruinsma’s corporate criminal model professionalized drug trafficking, integrating large‑scale ecstasy production and money‑laundering into the legitimate economy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the "back door" loophole in the Dutch coffee‑shop system?

The back door loophole allows coffee shops to sell cannabis legally to customers while the acquisition of that cannabis from suppliers remains illegal. This forces shop owners to purchase from criminal networks, giving traffickers a steady market and linking legal sales to the underground supply chain.

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Helpful resources related to this video

If you want to practice or explore the concepts discussed in the video, these commonly used tools may help.

History Of The Dutch East India Company Recommended

Provides a detailed historical account of the VOC, which the video identifies as the foundational model for global trade and colonial exploitation.

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Books On The History Of Drug Trafficking

Offers broader context on the evolution of global drug markets and the unintended consequences of international prohibition policies.

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Books About Organized Crime In Europe

Covers the rise of sophisticated criminal enterprises and the professionalization of the drug trade, mirroring the documentary's focus on Dutch criminal history.

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Full Transcript YouTube

[music]
>> The drug mafia has Europe firmly in its
grasp. Shootouts, kidnappings, bomb
attacks, executions, even torture
chambers.
Levels of violence once associated with
Mexico or Colombia are now spreading
across the major [music] port cities of
the old continent. In Rotterdam,
Antwerp, Hamburg, and Le Havre.
Smaller towns and rural areas are also
affected. But the epicenter of this wave
[music] of organized crime isn't
Marseille or Sicily.
It's the Netherlands.
In Osdorp, [music] a district in the
west of Amsterdam, the fight against
drug trafficking is in full swing.
From 2019 to 2024, this unassuming
building hosted the landmark Marengo
trial. It was unlike anything the
country had seen before.
Drug lords and their associates stood
accused of 10 counts of murder or
attempted murder.
Even inside the courtroom, intimidation
continued.
It's a horrible trial. The prosecutors
don't want to be known to the public.
The judges don't want to be known to the
public because fear is around this whole
trial.
During the proceedings, [music] a lawyer
for a witness and a prominent journalist
were assassinated. The former prime
minister
>> [music]
>> and the crown princess also received
kidnapping threats. Everybody was
afraid. And all the participants in the
trial were thinking, will I be next?
Will I be the next one to be killed?
>> [music]
>> The Marengo trial is considered
historic.
For the first time, it exposed close
ties between street-level criminals,
business figures, and mafia bosses.
A threat now [music] spreading across
Europe.
Whose origins all began here, in the
Netherlands.
So, we're all asking ourselves, when
will this stop? And
why have we
been in this mess?
>> [music]
[singing]
[music]
>> To find answers, we need to look back.
What's happening in the Netherlands
today is no accident.
It's the result of a centuries-old model
[music]
built on global trade.
>> [music and singing]
[music and singing]
[music]
[music]
>> In these low-lying wetlands, the Dutch
built their country by and on the water.
For generations, they constructed dikes
along the coast
to protect against external threats and
serve as a gateway to global trade.
Shipping routes, ports,
>> [music]
>> canals,
roads,
railways.
This flat landscape was engineered to
keep goods moving efficiently and
without interruption.
In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, trade
has always [music] had the top priority.
We are a country of tradesmen.
You know, we're always at this
crossroads where
uh
goods came in, goods were sent out, and
there was
people with money, bankers. The first
stock exchange ever to be built was
built in Amsterdam.
So,
we have always been this international
place of business. And
big I mean, a significant part [music]
of our wealth
was earned in that time.
For centuries, [bell and music]
we've been quite active on the seas.
Sailors, uh navigators, um uh
discoveries. We made posts in [music]
Africa, around in South Africa. We were
in South Africa, also to the Dutch East
Indies, to the Dutch West Indies. So, we
were always trading. [music] And we all
that had an economic interest in the
net. So, we are we are sailors, but we
are also businessmen [music]
and traders. So, we stole, you know,
um
all kinds of, you know, uh
uh herbs, spices.
We We just stole it. We went to
Southeast Asia, we [music] went to Latin
America, and we stole it and took it
here and pretended that we were really
good piece of business people. We were
thieves.
>> [music]
[music]
>> The story begins in 1581 [music]
with the founding of the Dutch Republic
as they broke away from Spain.
What followed [music] was a golden age
as the Netherlands rose to become a
global trading power.
As other European powers like France,
England, Spain, and Portugal expanded,
the Dutch built a network of trade-based
colonies
>> [music]
>> in Indonesia,
Southern Africa,
Brazil,
Surinam,
the Caribbean, and North America where
New Amsterdam would later become New
York.
For the Dutch, one principle stood above
all. Controlling territories must also
mean controlling markets.
Pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon,
saffron, anise, cumin, as well as tea,
tobacco, sugarcane, cocoa, and coffee.
The Dutch bought raw goods from colonies
and neighboring countries, processed
them, and then resold them at high
prices.
In doing so, they laid the foundations
[music]
of modern capitalism.
Profit through added value.
At the center of this system was the
Dutch East India Company or VOC founded
in 1602.
Its fleet was larger than that of all
other nations combined.
The VOC was the first joint stock
company in history and one of the most
powerful corporations ever created.
The VOC, that's an interesting
interesting organization because it was
not a state.
It was not the Netherlands or but it was
a commercial enterprise basically.
People put money together and they had
ships and they sailed the waves and
trying to conquer in a way new
territories for profits.
In the 17th century, [music]
trade and mercantilism combined with
another Dutch passion.
Botany.
Thanks to herbaria and the first
classification systems, the trade in
ornamental plants flourished in courts
across Europe.
In the Netherlands, tulips sparked a
speculative frenzy.
In [music] 1637, the market collapsed
popping what is often called the first
financial bubble in the history of
capitalism.
Those who had avoided bankruptcy [music]
turned to other profitable crops
including the opium [music] poppy.
In the 18th century, they developed a
monopoly on the import of opium in in
the Dutch East Indies. They manufactured
opium in a smokable form
and they sold it in opium dens
>> [music]
>> and they
it was quite profitable for for them.
By the 19th century, the Dutch state had
taken direct [music] control of the
opium trade using it to finance its
colonies in Indonesia.
They created a specially [music]
established administrative body and used
their strict state monopoly to curb
illegal trade.
There was a factory, Dutch state-owned
factory [music] that made the root
opium. It was packaged in official Dutch
opium boxes and [music] it was sold by
state shops owned by the state.
It was very profitable.
But on the other hand, there was another
movement in a way that was people were
concerned about the opium smoking in in
the in the Dutch East Indies.
Opium smoking became a bad habit, a
vice, bad for your health. So, they
experimented with a number of
instruments to reduce opium use. They
had a price policy and they made it more
expensive
and then they noticed that there the the
illegal trades
increased.
When they made it too cheap to fight the
illegal trade trade and the smugglers,
then more people
got addicted and more smokers and people
smoked more.
So, they had to find the right
balance in a way, not too expensive and
not too cheap.
>> [music]
[music]
[music]
>> Built at the height of the Golden Age by
wealthy merchants,
Amsterdam's [music]
canal-side neighborhoods offer a
picturesque backdrop.
>> [music]
>> Yet, much of that wealth came from what
we would now call
drug money. [music]
By the late 19th century, the
Netherlands faced a dilemma.
>> [music]
>> How to strike a balance between legality
and illegality,
between public health and government
revenue.
Whether tobacco, [music]
alcohol, or gambling,
the questions raised by opium then still
resonate today.
>> [music]
[music]
>> At the start of the 20th [music]
century, the Dutch embarked on the
production and trade of a new commodity,
cocaine.
As exceptional botanists, they [music]
cultivated coca plants from Peru in
their colony in Java.
>> [music]
>> You had all these tea, coffee
plantations.
In between them, there were all there
was also coca leaves produced. This was
a very profitable and totally legal
market.
And so, the number of plantations
increased and it appeared to be
that the coca leaves from Java were of
better quality than from Peru.
So, it was a good good opportunity to to
to invest in that.
In 1900, the NCF cocaine factory was
established in the heart of Amsterdam,
financed [music] by the Colonial Bank.
It competed with the German manufacturer
Merck,
a pioneer in cocaine production.
>> [music]
>> As incredible as it sounds today, at
that time, substances [music] like
morphine, heroin, and cocaine were sold
over the counter.
They were considered modern miracle
drugs.
>> [music]
>> Their use brought pleasure and euphoria
across the Netherlands, but also in
Germany, France,
>> [music]
>> and the United States.
Little was known about the dangers of
addiction.
>> [music]
>> During World War I, the Netherlands
capitalized on its neutrality to supply
British, German, and French troops.
It sold tons of cocaine and rose to
become a market leader.
Most of the drugs that we know
at some point in history were legal. So,
at a certain point in time we decided to
make those drugs illegal and to start
criminalizing them them and
tackling them with a war on those
substances. It's at that very moment
where we as a society
decided these drugs need to be
criminalized, need to be illegal, that's
when the profitability of the model was
born.
After the First World War, the League of
Nations, the [music] precursor to the
United Nations, created a new
international framework aimed at
protecting populations.
All member countries [music] were
obliged to regulate the drug trade.
Under pressure from the United States
and China,
Britain, France, and the [music]
Netherlands, which was the most
reluctant, ratified the Hague Opium
Convention.
This marked the beginning of a new era
in drug policy.
Over-the-counter sales were banned.
>> [music]
>> Narcotics now required a prescription.
>> [music]
>> The policy seemed reasonable,
but it had devastating [music]
consequences.
Recreational [music] users suddenly
faced stigma and withdrawal symptoms,
>> [music]
>> which of course pushed many to the black
market.
>> [music]
>> This marked the birth of the drug trade
as we know it today.
>> [music]
[music]
>> Heroin,
cocaine,
crack,
LSD,
MDMA,
cannabis.
Today, the distinction between hard and
soft drugs [music] may seem obvious.
But, it emerged only decades [music] ago
in Amsterdam in the early 1960s.
>> [music]
[music]
>> Jazz,
rock and roll,
sexual liberation,
counterculture from the United [music]
States spread across Europe.
In Amsterdam, the protest movements
awakened deeply [music] hidden desires.
Following in the footsteps of their
seafaring ancestors,
>> [music]
>> hundreds of young Dutch people set out
to explore the world.
>> [music]
[music]
>> From Iran to Afghanistan and India,
these new [music] explorers discovered
Krishna,
opium,
and heroin.
In Morocco, they experimented with kief
[music] and water pipes.
But, what would prove most significant
was what they learned in Afghanistan,
a method for producing hashish.
In the Berber villages of the Reef
Mountains, smiling young Europeans
appeared, drawn by the mythos of its
oriental region. Historically, that has
been the place where cannabis was grown.
The people who live there, the
indigenous people from the reef, have
been using the plant for many purposes,
for medicinal purposes, for food
purposes, as part of their um yeah,
medical plant uses. Uh
and from the '60s on, that has changed
because the demand for our hashish was
was fed by an enormous amount of
Europeans that came to stay and to uh
consume, and slowly the market for
hashish started to grow, which changed
uh for many people there who were yeah,
mostly very poor peasants, uh a new
option to have an income.
>> [music]
[music]
>> Young Dutch, as well as Spanish,
British, and French travelers bought
[music] cannabis along the hippie trail
and smuggled it back into Europe
by car,
>> [music]
>> airplane,
or cargo ship.
>> [music]
>> The romantic view is of course that
we're all hippies,
>> [music]
>> so anti-capitalist. Well, among the
happy among the hippies, there were
always entrepreneurs. Uh and you could,
let's say, having your smelly Afghan uh
coat and look like a hippie [music] and
travel also through Afghanistan and
back, but in the meantime, at least be
able [music] to finance your trip with a
good hotel.
>> [music]
>> For these aspiring young entrepreneurs,
dealing cannabis [music] to finance
their lifestyle became the perfect
business model.
Houseboats [music] in Amsterdam became
illegal sales points in plain sight of
the police.
Such acts of provocation
>> [music]
>> were a sign of the times.
So, how many plants have you been
selling?
>> We have been selling enough plants to
have a harvest by the month of October
of about 10,000 kilos of pure marijuana.
>> 10 tons, do you mean? 10 tons. And you
have also sold this in Western Europe?
We have sold it all to
France, Western Europe, Holland, Western
Germany, Belgium, and less to France.
Living up to their reputation as
merchants, the Dutch soon dominated the
European marijuana market.
But this exotic commodity, imported from
abroad, was also viewed as a threat that
needed to be fought.
It was met with suspicion.
It was associated with rebellion, with
agitation, because we didn't know the
substance.
And at first, the response of the police
was very fierce. People got arrested.
People got
imprisoned for [music]
a couple of months because of two
joints, for example. You know, the
penalties were very harsh.
>> [music]
>> That is a very effective repressive
system in the Netherlands.
Despite arrests and harsh sentences,
underground dealing continued
in cafes,
bars, [music] and trendy Amsterdam
nightclubs such as the Paradiso
and the Fantasio.
And [music] then there was a guy who
thought, "Well,
I have a bar. Why shouldn't I have a
dealer [music]
who sells only marijuana?" And one guy
started doing that.
Got closed down,
>> [music]
>> arrested
couple of times.
They are committing a crime according to
the drug law, but they are very
different from shoplifters, from
thieves. They are quite normal people.
So, what what's going on here?
Is criminal law a right instrument to
counter it
and to
suppress it in that way? And debate
started.
>> [music]
>> Public opinion, the justice system, and
police became more relaxed.
Arrests became less frequent
>> [music]
>> and sentences were reduced.
Then, in 1971,
the United States [music]
took a hard turn.
America's public enemy number one in the
United States is drug abuse.
President Richard Nixon publicly
declared a war on drugs,
a conflict that continues [music] to
this day.
This marked the beginning of a radical
shift in Western [music] drug policy.
Their future slogan,
just [music] say no.
In the early 1970s, the US [music] was
gripped by a heroin crisis fueled by
imports from Europe and Asia.
>> [music]
>> The US government struck hard.
In 1972, mass arrests dismantled heroin
smuggling networks in southern France.
>> [music]
>> But the war on drugs proved endless.
Criminal networks quickly reorganized.
Heroin,
>> [music]
>> which had previously flooded the US,
found a new market in Europe.
In Amsterdam,
>> [music]
>> the relative tolerance toward cannabis
was speeding up the spread of heroin.
Dealers offered both in bars and
nightclubs.
Heroin consumption [music] in Amsterdam
boomed within just a few years.
By the late 1970s, the city had become
one of Europe's main heroin hubs with
around [music] 10,000 heroin addicts in
a population of only about 700,000.
The public health crisis forced the
Dutch authorities to implement a
decisive reform of the 1919 opium law.
So, the idea was it was a kind of
package [music] deal.
A a a stricter policy towards hard drugs
and a more liberal
policy towards cannabis products.
That had had this the scheiding of the
>> known as the separation of markets. You
separate the cannabis market from the
heroin market.
In a place where
then
the for cope of
>> So, someone who's buying cannabis will
never come into contact with heroin.
That he need in contact come with
in with heroine.
In 1976,
the revision of the opium law was
passed.
With it came the distinction between
hard and soft drugs,
as well as harm reduction measures,
which have since revolutionized the
treatment of addicts.
This ushered in a new era for cannabis
users, the age of the coffee shops.
By the mid-1970s, Amsterdam had earned a
reputation as the coolest travel
destination in the world.
>> [music]
>> But when we
semi-legalized coffee shops,
there was initially [music] in Amsterdam
there were five or six.
And 10 years later, so in the middle of
the '80s,
there was something like 175 coffee
shops all over the country. [music] So
you got what we called drug tourism.
>> [music]
>> When they created their their coffee
shop model, they defended the idea that
criminalizing
and and waging a war on drugs is not
always effective. The Dutch have put a
lot of effort at that time to try and
tell the rest of the of Europe and the
world, we don't think this is
a war you can win. We would like to try
something different. Drug use is a
matter of public
health
and we would like to treat it that way.
And that's why the Dutch were at the
forefront in drug policy innovation in
the '70s.
>> [music]
>> Cannabis consumption might have been
decriminalized, [music]
but a problem remained.
As a signatory to international drug
control treaties, the Netherlands could
not import cannabis for its coffee shops
>> [music]
>> without the risk of being labeled a
narco-state.
With entrepreneurial spirit and a
pragmatic approach [music] to drug
policy,
the Dutch therefore developed a
questionable system known as the back
door.
>> [music]
>> In Harlem, west of Amsterdam,
Hannes Salfischberger owns several
coffee shops.
He's still grappling with the
regulations introduced in 1976.
Welcome. This place is cannabis cafe
Maximillian. And you can see we have a
complete menu here. Yes, so we have a
lot of kinds of marijuana here. And then
we have also uh
one drawer full of this joints and
smokeables. Uh hashish, Moroccan
hashish.
The coffee shop has a front door and a
back door. At the front door, where the
customer buys cannabis, it's all more or
less regulated.
You can just go inside and buy a maximum
of 5 g.
And then you smoke it there or you go
home.
And there's no problem. The back door,
however, where the coffee shop owner has
to buy their cannabis, well, that's
totally illegal.
So, every
straight-minded person would ask you,
"But wait a minute.
But
if you're allowed to sell it in small
amounts, but you're not allowed to buy
it in bigger amounts,
how does that work?"
Oh yeah, this is for example
we got it here. This is Moroccan block
hash. That means it's made from Dutch
seeds and grown in Morocco.
Don't ask me how it gets here, but it's
here.
It's just like a system what
goes out, you put in. What goes out, you
put in. And this is the job for the
backdoor. You call the backdoor, the
achterdeur. Yes.
The backdoor is the loophole in the
system.
Through this secret passage, illegal
cannabis imports [music] enter the
Netherlands.
Police and customs authorities quietly
look the other way.
>> [music]
>> Criminals exploited this loophole
and the backdoor became [music] an entry
point for the illegal drug trade.
>> [music]
[music]
>> By the mid-1980s, the Moroccan [music]
Reef had become Europe's primary
cannabis supplier.
>> [music]
>> Over a span of 15 years, cultivated
areas had increased tenfold.
Cannabis was the only profitable crop in
this dry, remote region,
>> [music]
>> one of the poorest in Morocco.
The Berbers of the Reef had long been
isolated from the rest [music] of the
country.
At the beginning [music] of the 20th
century, the region witnessed North
Africa's first anti-colonial liberation
struggle.
After Morocco gained independence in
1956, [music] the people of the Reef
suffered violent repression under future
King Hassan II. The Reef [music] became
a land of suffering, which many left
behind.
Among the main destination countries
were the Netherlands, [music]
especially Amsterdam.
>> [music]
>> When demand for hashish exploded in the
1980s, the first coffee shop supply
chains followed the migration routes of
the Reef diaspora.
Small quantities were smuggled by
[music] Moroccan families returning from
holidays in their home villages.
I mean, obviously Moroccan people say,
"Hey,
it's kind of legal in the Netherlands,
so
let's call my brother or my uncle or my,
you know, my old friend from high
school, and you know, bring it in. We
can make money here. And it's kind of
legal.
Or it's not, yeah.
Uh well, well, well, let's do it."
>> [music]
>> Cannabis still came from Morocco,
but by the mid-1980s,
it was no longer hippies,
but underworld bosses who controlled
distribution [music] in the coffee
shops.
A violent and barely concealed criminal
underworld, which controlled not only
the lucrative hashish trade, but also
gambling, prostitution,
>> [music]
>> and the heroin market.
In Amsterdam's Red Light District, a
young man from a well-to-do family
became the symbol of this criminal
model,
Klaas Bruinsma.
He laid the foundations of the modern
Dutch drug trade.
Bruinsma, I would define primarily as an
innovation-oriented businessman, with a
business
um education, a business family
background,
uh and always looking for new ways, and
profit
uh oriented. So, how can I make more
profit?
>> [music]
>> He had his network,
but he did not copy the sloppiness, so
to say,
uh after the hippie year. Not too stoned
and then forget that you had to deliver,
but set up an agency more or less, a
network that was
with that offered good service, good
service from the perspective of users
and and small-scale suppliers. So, good
quality, uh clean packed,
uh delivered in time, uh always enough
on stock or at least able to provide the
market with [music] a variety in quality
and for a fair price. Just like you
would do as a capitalist entrepreneur,
you open a store,
you must be open during opening hours.
And sometimes, when you have a night
store, you must be open at night. Well,
that's exactly what what Bruinsma
brought new in.
Klaas Bruinsma eliminated middlemen and
organized imports from Morocco himself.
>> [music]
>> To maximize shipments and better conceal
his merchandise, he sent hydraulic
presses to his producers [music] in the
Reef Mountains so they could shape the
hash into soap-sized blocks.
Bruinsma established a standard of 250-g
[music] blocks.
He was able to create an organization,
people having the different roles, a
division of roles over time with the
importation and the distribution. That
was Bruinsma mentality. That's what
Bruinsma did by taking care of the
hash production in Morocco.
You offer them equipment
and then you get better quality.
>> [music]
>> Business boomed.
A seasoned businessman, Bruinsma
surrounded himself with tax lawyers to
invest in real estate and launder money
in Amsterdam [music] and the Bahamas.
Intoxicated by his own wealth, Klaas
Bruinsma bet big and lost. [music]
In the early 1990s, police seized a
shipment of 45 tons of hashish.
>> [music]
>> Betrayed by his competitors and
isolated, the Netherlands' biggest
gangster was later shot dead outside a
Hilton Hotel.
His empire collapsed,
>> [music]
>> but his criminal model would survive
him.
There is not a monopoly and there is not
one mafia and there is a lot that is not
mafia organized. In criminology we say
the drug market is largely disorganized.
Uh
it is not one big organization, but it
runs from project project to project.
And of course there are business leaders
that always behind
the product
the projects.
Uh and the little networks, but you need
to be flexible. And this is the
challenge for
for criminals, the entrepreneurship.
Probably not so much the drug,
but making it into a creative
profit-making
action.
We often forget.
It is the fun
of a lifestyle of being on the thrill of
being a criminal.
>> [music]
>> With the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989,
the drug landscape changed.
>> [music]
>> As heroin lost its shine and was
overtaken by synthetic drugs, the
Netherlands shifted from a transit hub
>> [music]
>> to a production country.
Heroin was this drug of doom and gloom,
>> [music]
>> and ecstasy was this drug, let's party,
let's have fun together. Capitalism is
winning, the communists are going out.
Let's celebrate.
>> [music]
>> And ecstasy was the drug that
that captured that moment in time.
>> [music]
>> But somebody had to make that ecstasy,
and that happened in the Netherlands.
Criminals started investing their money
in from hashish
>> [music]
>> into
ecstasy.
>> [music]
>> So, smuggling and trafficking stuff,
that's what we've been good at all
along. So, hashish, cannabis, heroin,
[music]
we'll do it. And if we wouldn't do it,
you know, the Moroccans would do it or
the Turkish would do it, you know,
because
>> [music]
>> I mean,
this country is an open country. There
is so many different [music]
nationalities living here with, you
know, different ethnic, cultural
backgrounds. So,
that's what the trade is. [music] Trade
is international, and that's like the
core of this country.
>> [music]
>> So, besides becoming a country of
traders,
we became a drug-producing nation.
And that's when
the the Dutch drug economy uh flipped.
>> [music]
>> In 1995, US drug enforcement [music]
agents alerted the Dutch police.
The country was synthesizing 20 million
ecstasy pills per month [music]
or 70,000 per day,
approximately 3/4 of global production.
>> [music]
>> Added to this was a brand new botanical
innovation,
Nederhash,
cannabis
>> [music]
>> grown in the Netherlands.
This hybrid plant was produced indoors
[music]
and was three to four times more potent
than the original plant. Nederhash
cultivation spread rapidly across the
country. The back door became the front
door. [music]
Production now took place at home.
Fears of a narco state [music] spread.
With the ratification of the Maastricht
Treaty, Amsterdam became the Wall Street
of drugs in a Europe where the last
border checkpoints had disappeared,
[music]
the French and Germans started to
pressure the Netherlands to take action.
In 1997, [music]
the opium law was revised again.
Indoor cultivation was reduced and
hundreds of coffee shops were closed.
[music]
But drug money had long since seeped
into the legal economy.
>> [music]
>> One event would bring to light the
entanglement between organized crime
and the Dutch business establishment.
>> [music]
>> In the 1990s, Monaco was a popular
[music] meeting place for international
real estate investors, entrepreneurs,
and high net worth individuals.
At charity galas, members of the [music]
underworld mingled with affluent guests
and crowned heads.
There was one table in that big room.
And it was bought
by
organized crime.
And
that table was next to
Dutch royalty, who were also there.
John Mieremet,
a notorious Amsterdam gangster.
His partner, Sam Klepper, drug
trafficker and Hells Angels member.
And Willem Holleeder, known for the
kidnapping of businessman Alfred
Heineken.
All three of them were seated at the
same table.
How did these people
that everybody seems to consider bad and
they were violent and they were there?
Where we always thought that the
underworld was this, you know, big dark
gray area where we we couldn't see.
But actually, that was that's was a
fictitious image because the underworld
was right there with
Yeah, if we could name it like that, the
upper world, you know, the the highest
tier of our country.
>> [snorts]
>> And the fact that they were mingling and
mixing,
it was fascinating. And, you know, if if
we talk about money or morality, who
wins?
And in the Netherlands, it's always
money.
And that's what, you know, that table at
that gala, what that says about the
Netherlands.
Sam Klepper and John Mieremet were
murdered in the early 2000s. [music]
Willem Holleeder is serving a life
sentence for five counts of murder.
[music]
The path was clear for a new generation
of criminals.
The greatest [music] talent of the Dutch
resides in their capacity to constantly
reinvent new markets and find new
avenues for trade.
>> [music]
>> This created a dangerous dynamic that
would soon prove costly for the country
and its neighbors.
For this was the poison that would fuel
the profits of today's [music] drug
trafficking networks.
In the [music] early 2000s, a new era
dawned for cocaine
and a new criminal organization moved
into the spotlight.
The infamous Mocro Maffia.
>> [music]
[music]
[music]
[music]

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DW Documentary

May 23, 2026

Historical Foundations

20th Century Shift

Counterculture and the Coffee Shop Model

Professionalization of Crime

Mechanisms Explained

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