Cocaine king creates a narco state in Africa | Gravitas

A plastic container declared as plastic waste was shipped from Ghana to the French port of Dunkirk. Its contents: four tonnes of white powder, valued at a whopping two hundred and twenty-five million euros. Narcotics investigators in Ghana have linked the September shipment to 35-year-old Dutch fugitive Jos Leijdekkers. Jos has built one of Europe’s most powerful cocaine operations from a base in Sierra Leone, all under the alleged protection of the nation’s most powerful figure.

One of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, Leijdekkers has been sentenced in absentia to 24 years in the Netherlands and 79 in Belgium. According to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, Leijdekkers’ operation, reportedly worth more than Sierra Leone’s entire national budget, reflects a shift in the drug trade. West Africa, once a secondary route to Europe, now accounts for at least 30 per cent of the cocaine reaching the continent.

The Dutchman has lived a brazen exile in Sierra Leone, a former British colony, since at least 2022. He has been filmed attending a New Year’s Day church service alongside the country’s first family, and handing out gifts at a nightclub birthday party to senior officials, including the head of the country’s own drug police. Fatima Bio, the president’s wife, told the BBC she had never heard of Leijdekkers and dismissed any suggestion of any family connection.

Investigators believe Leijdekkers’ network uses what is known as the “mothership” method. Large cargo vessels loaded with cocaine in West Africa sail towards Europe before transferring their cargo at sea to smaller speedboats. According to wastewater testing by the EU drugs agency, cocaine consumption across Europe rose by 22 per cent last year, with London among the highest-consuming cities on the continent. In England alone, the Home Office estimates the market is worth 9.8 billion pounds, more than any other illegal drug.