Criminal Mink Kok arrested in Beirut | Inland

Kok has been in the news a lot lately, because he gave interviews from Lebanon about developments in the Dutch underworld. He considered himself a sort of insider and ‘knowledgeable’ about the criminal environment.

In the Amsterdam criminal environment, Kok has been a leader in a negative sense for decades. As a weapons expert and dealer in drugs and weapons, he made a name for himself in the underworld. In 1996 and 2000 he was convicted of involvement in the trafficking of weapons and drugs and in 2013 for smuggling dozens of kilograms of cocaine. Justice prosecuted Kok unsuccessfully for involvement in the liquidation of hash trader Jaap van der Heiden in Alkmaar in 1993.

The Amsterdam criminal, who is married to a Lebanese woman, was also arrested in Beirut in 2011. He was sentenced in the country to 4.5 years in prison for being involved in a 53 kilo consignment of cocaine. He was released again in 2016. At the time, Kok stated that he could not go to the Netherlands because his passport had been confiscated due to a debt of millions with the tax authorities. He had those debts because of profits he made in the 1990s. This happened at the time when the police used a method of investigation that was later much criticized.

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Interregional investigative teams (IRTs) deliberately allowed drug transports through at the time in order to reach the top of the organization of top criminal Klaas Bruinsma, who was shot dead in 1991. Criminals were aware of this and made millions of profits under the eyes of the Public Prosecution Service.

In 2018 he was heard as a witness in the criminal case against Willem Holleeder. Kok stated that Holleeder was not the one in charge in the underworld. On the contrary, he was a “tailwind” and a victim of circumstances. According to Kok, the evil genius was Stanley Hillis, who was liquidated in 2011.

Headpiece around Ridouan Taghi

According to police sources, the second detainee, Najim Z., is a leader of the criminal alliance around Ridouan Taghi. Like Mink Kok, Z. is an Amsterdammer. The action of the National Criminal Investigation Service fits in with the aim to break down the entire power structure around Taghi and other leaders of the mocromafia. In that regard, many leaders have been arrested in the Netherlands and abroad in the past year and a half.

According to the OM, both Dutch people are probably involved in large-scale international drug trafficking. In an investigation by the National Criminal Investigation Service, suspicions have arisen against them of involvement in cocaine transport of hundreds of kilograms from South America to the Netherlands.

The trail to the suspects has become visible in intercepted PGP messages from Sky ECC. This crypto communication service was cracked by the investigative services at the beginning of 2021. An analysis of intercepted Sky messages has provided insight into the role of the 60-year-old suspect in the import of 370 kilos of cocaine in 2020.

Party cocaine missing

After this party arrived in Antwerp, the drug organization lost sight of the pallets with boxes of bananas and cocaine. The Dutchman was probably busy from Lebanon to find out where the drugs had gone. The missing shipment was eventually seized in a supermarket in Germany in October 2020.

The 41-year-old suspect is associated with illegal shipments of 750 and 840 kilos of cocaine intercepted in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam in 2021.

The Public Prosecution Service has asked the Lebanese authorities to extradite both suspects. It is not yet known how much time this procedure will take.

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