Considered one of Europe’s most-wanted drug lords has been dwelling in Sierra Leone for not less than two years, spending time at nightclubs and home events, sources have instructed the Guardian.
Johannes Leijdekkers, a Dutch nationwide, has been sentenced in absentia to a long time in jail for offences together with cocaine trafficking on an unlimited scale and ordering a homicide. In September Dutch police mentioned he remained lacking and supplied a €200,000 (£170,000) reward for any data resulting in his arrest.
In a dramatic growth final month that despatched ripples via worldwide regulation enforcement circles, Leijdekkers was seen attending a New 12 months’s Day church service with Sierra Leone’s presidential household, in footage posted on Fb by the nation’s first girl.
Reuters, which verified the footage utilizing facial recognition expertise, quoted sources who mentioned he had been benefitting from high-level safety in Sierra Leone, one among a lot of west African transit factors for cocaine trafficking from South America to Europe. Responding to the footage, Dutch prosecutors mentioned Leijdekkers had been dwelling in Sierra Leone for not less than six months.
However Leijdekkers’ presence can now be dated again to not less than December 2022. A number of sources instructed the Guardian that he was current at a New 12 months’s Eve social gathering that yr on the Mamba Level resort within the capital, Freetown. The testimony corroborated footage that has been circulating in Sierra Leone of a person who resembles Leijdekkers concerned in a fracas at a nightclub. Evaluation of the footage confirmed it had been filmed at Mamba Level. At one level the phrases “Happy New Year 2023” might be seen on a display within the background.
Sources additionally positioned Leijdekkers at a home social gathering hosted by a well-liked Lebanese couple within the Tokeh seashore space in December 2023. Footage from the social gathering exhibits a person resembling Leijdekkers in attendance.
Sources mentioned Leijdekkers has been in a relationship with Agnes Bio, a daughter of Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio. Leijdekkers and Bio have been sitting subsequent to one another within the church service footage from 1 January this yr. Bio is the president’s daughter from a earlier relationship with Zainab Kandeh, Sierra Leone’s consul to Morocco. She serves as an alternate consultant of Sierra Leone on the UN Safety Council.
The Dutchman was additionally current at Maada Bio’s farm in his hometown of Tihun throughout a go to in 2024, based on an official within the presidency who spoke anonymously. Footage of a person resembling Leijdekkers has been in circulation exhibiting him being cheered by villagers as he bent to reap rice.
Leijdekkers, who has assumed quite a few aliases and nicknames, together with Bolle Jos, was sentenced in absentia by a Rotterdam court docket final June to 24 years in jail for six drug transports totalling 7,000kg of cocaine, an armed theft in Finland, and ordering the homicide of an affiliate. He was additionally given a 10-year sentence in absentia by a court docket in Belgium in September over an try and smuggle medicine through the port of Antwerp in 2020.
Organised legal teams have lengthy used west African international locations as a staging publish for cocaine shipments from South America to Europe. The revelations about Leijdekkers come at an ungainly second for the authorities in Sierra Leone, which final month recalled its ambassador from neighbouring Guinea after seven suitcases containing suspected cocaine have been present in an embassy automobile.
After the primary experiences emerged of Leijdekkers’ presence in Sierra Leone, authorities in Freetown mentioned the president had “no knowledge about the identity and the issues detailed in the reports about the individual in question”. The presidency official instructed the Guardian that the presidency had been unaware of Leijdekkers’ background till a Reuters report on 24 January. The official gave no additional particulars.
In a press convention final week in Freetown, inspector-general of police William Fayia Sellu, mentioned an “open-source investigation” into the footage from 1 January had decided that the “the individual in the pictures being circulated online is called Omar Sheriff”.
“Raids have been conducted at specific locations where this individual was said to be present and he has not been found yet,” Sellu mentioned. He declined to say how the id of the person had been decided or whether or not Omar Sheriff and Johannes Leijdekkers are the identical individual.
The data minister, Chernor Bah, instructed the identical press convention that investigators have been “looking into” whether or not the person that they had recognized had been within the nation for greater than six months. “I don’t think they [police] have established a definite timeframe yet,” Bah later instructed the Guardian. “At this stage, they are comfortable to say that records for the past six months don’t reveal that person via any formal entry points in our country.”
It stays unclear if Leijdekkers remains to be in Sierra Leone. Final week, the Dutch justice minister mentioned an extradition request had been despatched to authorities within the nation. A consultant for the Dutch justice ministry didn’t reply to a request for feedback.
