Johannes Leijdekkers, who has been on the run for at least two years, is wanted in the Netherlands for smuggling more than seven tonnes of cocaine
Dutch national Johannes Leijdekkers, who has been on the run for at least two years, was sentenced in absentia to 24 years in prison in June last year by a Rotterdam court.
In September Dutch police said he remained missing and offered a €200,000 reward for any information leading to his arrest.
Leijdekkers, who has been living it up at nightclubs and house parties, according to the Guardian, appeared at a New Year’s Day church service with Sierra Leone’s presidential family.
In footage posted on Facebook by the country’s first lady, a sombre-looking Leijdekkers can be seen in a white shirt at the service.
Responding to the footage, Dutch prosecutors said they believed Leijdekkers had been living in Sierra Leone for at least six months.
However, after Reuters verified the footage using facial recognition technology, his presence has now be dated back to at least December 2022.
The Guardian states that “multiple sources” have claimed he was present at a New Year’s Eve party that year at the Mamba Point resort in the capital, Freetown.
“The testimony corroborated footage that has been circulating in Sierra Leone of a man who resembles Leijdekkers involved in a fracas at a nightclub,” the Guardian reports.
“Analysis of the footage showed it had been filmed at Mamba Point. At one point the words ‘Happy New Year 2023’ can be seen on a screen in the background.
It has also been reported that Leijdekkers is in a relationship with a daughter of Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio.
Leijdekkers and Agnes Bio, Sierra Leone’s consul to Morocco, were seen sitting next to each other in the church service footage from 1 January this year.
Bio, who is the president’s daughter from a previous relationship with Zainab Kandeh, serves as an alternate representative of Sierra Leone on the UN Security Council.
Dutch police have described Leijdekkers as “one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking”.
He is also listed as one of the most-wanted fugitives by Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency.
Leijdekkers, who has operated under various assumed numerous aliases and nicknames, including Bolle Jos, was sentenced in absentia by a Rotterdam court last June to 24 years in prison.
He is wanted for six drug transports totalling 7,000kg of cocaine, an armed robbery in Finland, and ordering the murder of an associate.
He was also given a 10-year sentence in absentia by a court in Belgium in September over an attempt to smuggle drugs via the port of Antwerp in 2020.
Dutch prosecutor Wim de Bruin said the fugitive’s return to the Netherlands was of “the highest priority”.
“We are doing everything we can in that regard but we cannot comment any further because of the ongoing investigation,” he told the BBC.
A spokesperson for the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) said that until recently he was suspected to be living in Turkey.
Sierra Leonean authorities have not commented on the claims.
West Africa is a major transit point for the trafficking of cocaine from Latin America.
Sierra Leone recalled its ambassador from neighbouring Guinea on January 17, after seven suitcases containing suspected cocaine were found in an embassy vehicle.
Guinean authorities impounded a vehicle belonging to Sierra Leone’s embassy and detained its occupants on suspicion of possessing “substances suspected to be cocaine”, Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Alhaji Musa Timothy Kabba said.
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Publish date : 2025-02-19 03:39:00
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