Criminals benefit from Dutch trading mentality | Radio Netherlands Worldwide

Mr Leistra says the large number of different nationalities that live in the Netherlands is an added bonus; criminals have contacts all over the world. Colombian cocaine traffickers use the Netherlands as the gateway to the rest of Europe by utilising the Colombian community in the Netherlands: 'first the drugs, usually cocaine, leave South America and are transported via the Antilles or Suriname.

However, lately the drugs have gone directly to Nigeria. The gangs use men and women, known as drug mules, to smuggle the coke into the Netherlands. It's a real international network. Slowly but surely, an international Mafia is developing and Dutch criminals and are taking a share of the business'.