Rotterdam Terminal Workers Face Prison After a Controlled Cocaine Delivery
Customs swapped 20 kilograms of cocaine for dummy packages and watched the container come out of the stack
Dutch prosecutors are seeking prison sentences of up to three and a half years for two Rotterdam men accused of using temporary jobs at a container terminal to retrieve a cocaine shipment that customs officers had already replaced with dummy packages.
The 39-year-old faces a demand of three and a half years, and prosecutors are seeking three years with 12 months suspended for a 28-year-old. Both are accused of jointly importing 23 kilograms of cocaine. The case was heard in the Netherlands on Friday, with the Public Prosecution Service describing the investigation as the product of cooperation between authorities in St Maarten and the Netherlands.
The chain began far from Rotterdam. On 18 April, St Maarten Customs found 20 kilograms of cocaine during an inspection of an in-transit container vessel at Port St Maarten. The drugs were concealed in a sports bag inside an apparently empty box. The vessel had departed Curaçao and was routed via St Maarten among other calls to the Netherlands, with the container's final destination a terminal in Rotterdam's Waalhaven. The prosecutor's office in St Maarten then authorised special investigative powers and asked Dutch authorities to continue the case.
When the container reached the Netherlands on 5 May, the HARC team, a joint unit of Dutch Customs, the fiscal investigation service FIOD, the seaport police and the prosecution service, took over. Rather than let the original shipment be collected, customs replaced the sports bag with one holding dummy packages, then watched the box be discharged. Investigators say they saw the two suspects retrieve the bag.
Both men had been temporarily assigned to work at the Waalhaven terminal. Prosecutors say they left the site with two sports bags and drove to an address in Rotterdam's Agniesebuurt, left the property without returning to their vehicles, and were followed by a police search that found the dummy packages in the cars. Part of the sequence was captured on security cameras, and information on one suspect's phone is said to show familiarity with the method of placing cocaine-filled bags in empty containers for later retrieval. Concealment inside an apparently empty box is a recurring pattern, as in the cocaine found in a ship's sea chest strainers.
The men eventually reported themselves to police, saying they feared reprisals from the network behind the shipment and wanting the seizure and the confiscation of their vehicles publicly confirmed. The prosecution said they feared for their lives given the value of the quantity involved.
Prosecutors are asking for heavier punishment because the men are said to have exploited positions inside the port. That, the service argued, breached their employers' trust and undermined confidence in Rotterdam, where thousands of workers hold legitimate roles. The higher demand against the 39-year-old rests on messages said to indicate a directing role, and on an outstanding probationary period from an earlier suspended sentence.
The case was first made public in St Maarten on 30 June, when authorities announced the 20-kilogram seizure and two arrests in the Netherlands. Both men remain suspects and the sentences announced are demands rather than convictions.
