Mocro Mafia or Maffia, the nebulous Dutch-Belgian-Moroccan drug organization, once considered the most powerful and dangerous in Europe and even the world, now seems to carry decadence and leave its influence there, since that his alleged mastermind, Ridouan Taghi (45), was appearing in an extraordinary and highly secure trial, before the courts of the Netherlands.
Indeed, for more than eighteen months and in the context of a vast case of cocaine trafficking, the latter and about fifteen other suspects must answer before their judges. They must explain the reasons for some thirteen murders or attempted murders, death threats on the highest levels of the state including Dutch eminences, in particular the head of government or the crown princess of the Netherlands, Amalia.
It must be recognized that the image of the all-powerful criminal organization Mocro Mafia, which threatened, at all costs, the leading personalities, has singularly tarnished in recent weeks. The atmosphere is more like that of “Freed“, with scenes of murders of repentants, lawyers and journalists, or threats of kidnappings. It is moreover by one of them that this trial saw its reason for being.
The Mocro Mafia saga began when small drug traffickers from the Rif, and the Moroccan authorities keeping an eye on them, took refuge to structure themselves in two countries in northern Europe, Belgium and the – Low in this case. After dealing with cannabis for a while in the late 1990s, they moved on to another more profitable level, that of coke. They ally themselves with other gangs or cartels such as the Calabrian mafia or the Colombian drug traffickers and are therefore in the more lucrative narcotics, cocaine or other synthetic drugs.
Macro Mafia has in the meantime and for many years reigned over this organization which quietly makes its butter in northern Europe. Admittedly, some settling of accounts arise here and there, some of which have even splashed Marrakech with a shootout at the La Crème café. But as long as they kill each other, the Belgian-Dutch authorities looked elsewhere. Except that recently a level of violence and terror has been crossed which has triggered a vast operation on a global scale to put an end to these actions.
A penitent and his lawyer are assassinated in the middle of the street and in the same way will perish Peter R. de Vries, an investigative journalist, who had dared to reveal the names of certain mafiosos. Suddenly it is a real manhunt that is engaged.
Ridouan Taghi at the head of the Mocro Mafia, was arrested in Dubai in 2019. But not only since other gang leaders and not the least (Mocro Mafia, Irish gangs including that of Daniel Kinahan the godfather of the Irish underworld, clans Balkan countries, Italian Camorra, etc.), which shared a market worth at least a third of cocaine imports into Europe, will experience the same fate.
All these beautiful people (49 suspects, except Kinahan still on the run with a “wanted” on his head of 5 million dollars) fell into the net in five countries in mid-November 2022 including six big bosses in Dubai. The cartel is dismantled. These spectacular crackdowns in five countries were made possible thanks to international cooperation agreements signed with the United Arab Emirates this fall. Never mind ! the weeds are still growing and just over a month and a half away from these events, it is clear that the legacy is already doing well and business has picked up again.
Indeed, taking advantage of the decline of Macro Mafia, it is the competition, particularly from the Balkans, which is gaining momentum. Albanians, with a tough profile, welded and discreet, took over. We also note that the modus operandi has also changed. Gone are the days of “Godfather“ and his minions at the controls. Today it’s group work and everyone has their own qualifications – the Moroccans take control of the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam…, the Italians money laundering, the Albanians the distribution, the Colombians the supply of the product, the Irish the transport and who knows what else, etc.
In short, it’s globalization, integration and “basta” communitarianism. This is reflected, moreover, through fluid networks that act as boards of directors. Mocro Mafia didn’t work that way. For having retained a pure and hard classicism in his way of conceiving and managing the thing, Ridouan Taghi paid the price with an extradition and imprisonment in a high security prison, in the south of the Netherlands and even he continued to inspire his clan from the bottom of his cell, his conditions of detention were increasingly hardened.
He now lives in isolation after having shared his prison wing with four inmates convicted of terrorism. His lawyers victimize him denouncing in this “insufficient access to care”. “Undignified conditions of detention that amount to physical and psychological torture”, they denounce.