How the Netherlands became a narco-state

In a heavily-fortified Amsterdam courthouse known as The Bunker, Ridouan Taghi, the chieftain of the so-called ‘Mocro-Maffia’ (Moroccan mafia), and 16 of his henchmen learned their fate today. The gang were all found guilty of a series of murders that shocked the Netherlands.

Taghi’s case is symptomatic of a wider illness within Dutch society. In 2020, police discovered a soundproofed torture chamber in a disused shipping container belonging to one of Taghi’s rivals. Inside was a dentist’s chair with restraints for arms and legs, as well as finger clamps, scalpels, hammers, pliers, gas burners, and duct tape. 

While there have always been gangland hits known as ‘liquidations’ and overall crime rates are still extremely low, this new reign of terror reminiscent of the Cosa Nostra or Miami’s cocaine cowboys era in the 1980s has led to the land of windmills being described as a ‘narco-state.’

How did it come to be this way? It all started in the Sixties, of course, when the Provo (short