Police Union Head: Netherlands Now a Narco-State with Parallel Economy

Jan Struijs, president of the Dutch police union, has claimed his country, the Netherlands, is a narco-state, with drug dealing criminals operating a parallel economy.

Struijis says the Netherlands, often praised by left-liberals for its drug decriminalisation policies, is now a “narco-state 2.0” where criminal dealers have become so influential they compete with the official Dutch economy.

“I call the Netherlands a narco-state 2.0 because drugs pump so much money into the legal economy that it takes over. It undermines democracy but also the economy,” Struijis told Swedish broadcaster SVT.

According to SVT, the massive illegal drugs black economy has influenced various parts of the official economy of the Netherlands, including housing prices and some companies that operate legal businesses but have been taken over by drug dealing criminals.

Along with influencing on the economy, drug dealing groups and mafias have also threatened and killed journalists and lawyers in recent years.

Dutch veteran crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was shot last year in July on the streets of Amsterdam and died several days later. His death came after De Vries had been an adviser for a witness in a major crime gang trial, known as the Marengo trial, whose leader Ridouan Taghi was extradited to the Netherlands in 2019.

Another man, lawyer Derk Wiersum, was also shot dead in 2019. He was the lawyer of a star witness in the Marengo trial.

A total of 17 people in the Moroccan or ‘Morco’ mafia were charged with six killings and several more attempted murders.

Journalist Jens Olde Kalter spoke to SVT on the killings, saying: “Is it worth dying for? Do I want my kids to grow up without a father? Do I want my children to grow up in a narco-state? These are the kinds of things I’m thinking about.”

Violence relating to drug trafficking gangs is not a new phenomenon in the Netherlands, with nearly 20 people being murdered from 2021 to 16 in the so-called Morco War.

In March of 2016, a gang went as far as leaving the severed head of a rival from another gang on the street in Amsterdam as part of the violence.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.