Mocro Mafia leaders sentenced: a story of crime and terror in Europe

On February 27, 2024, the infamous Dutch Marengo trial of seventeen members of the 'Mocro Mafia' came to an end. It had been the biggest trial ever seen in The Netherlands. During the six-year monster trial, several people connected to the case were assassinated in the streets of Amsterdam.

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The seventeen male defendants stood trial for "six murders committed between 2015 and 2017, four attempted murders, and preparations for more liquidations," according to Dutch broadcaster NOS. Who are these notorious men of the so-called 'Mocro Mafia'?

They have been the subject of TV series and films: a group of criminals smuggling and selling illegal substances across The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal. As most of them are of Moroccan descent, they are called 'the Mocro Mafia.'

Image: still from the series 'De Mocro Maffia' / Videoland

Even though they are described as one 'mafia,' they are more accurately described as gangs working loosely together and sometimes even against each other. They operate across borders and cooperate with Colombian drug lords as well as their European counterparts.

The Colombian police even worked together with Interpol, the FBI, and the DEA (the American Drug Enforcement Administration) to catch one of their biggest bosses. They compared the manhunt to that of Pablo Escobar in 1993.

As researched by newspapers like The Guardian and El País, Colombian drug cartels began searching for routes to the European market in the 1990s, using Morocco as a country to pass through. The North African country had a lot of connections with Europe because of its sizable diaspora of migrant workers in different European countries.

The aforementioned media found that networks of drug trade formed in southern Spain, in the Belgian port city of Antwerp and certain parts of Brussels, and in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam. Morocco became the main source of hashish and cannabis in Europe.

Image: Nastya Dulhiier / Unsplash

In recent years, violent settlements between rival gangs have made the Mocro Mafia notorious in the Netherlands and other countries. Here's a chronology of the most shocking incidents.

Image: Max Kleinen / Unsplash

According to Dutch broadcaster NOS, gangs got into an argument about 200 kilos of coke that had disappeared from the port of Antwerp in 2012. As a result, a group of Moroccan and Antillean gang members split into two: one led by Gwenette Martha and the other by Houssine A. and Benaouf A.

Image: Mihai Surdu / Unsplash

Benaouf A. and his accomplices interrogated and tortured members of a rival group in an attempt to track down the missing substances. According to NH Nieuws, Najeb Bouhbouh was the first person to get killed in the conflict. He was shot in October 2012 in front of a hotel in Antwerp.

Image: Maxim Hopman / Unsplash

The assassination of Bouhbouh caused Martha to put a bounty on Benaouf A.'s head. It led to a violent attack in the center of Amsterdam at the end of 2012, the Dutch NOS reported. Seven people were killed.

Image: Matt Pictures / Unsplash

However, Benaouf A. managed to escape by diving into the canal and hiding between two houseboats.

As the AD newspaper reports, Gwenette Martha, the suspected leader of the Bouhbouh camp, was assassinated in a suburb of Amsterdam in May 2014.

Image: AT5 / YouTube

In the same year, Benaouf A. was arrested in connection with the murder of Bouhbouh. He was tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison. According to NH Nieuws, Benaouf A. has always maintained that he had nothing to do with this assassination.

Image: AT5 / YouTube

In 2015, Eaneas Lomp, who belonged to the camp of Gwenette Martha, was liquidated in the city of Krommenie. It is suspected that Nabil Amzieb along with a friend named Hicham M. was responsible for Lomp's murder.

In the following year, Nabil Amzieb's head was found on the sidewalk in front of a café in Amsterdam. A day earlier, the rest of his body had been found in a burnt-out van. This horrifying assassination has been regarded as a low point in the Amsterdam underworld war. According to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, it was a veiled threat to  Benaouf A. and his accomplices.

Several journalists who reported on the assassinations of the Mocro Mafia groups have been personally threatened. Since October 2017, crime journalist Paul Vugts of the Parool newspaper has been under permanent surveillance because the Amsterdam police have "concrete and detailed information about threats from criminal circles."

Image: AT5 / YouTube

While various Mocro mafiosi were on trial for the assassinations, the brother of a key witness was murdered. A gunman shot Amsterdam resident Redouan B. in his own building. He was the brother of Nabil B., an important witness and a suspect in an assassination case himself.

Nabil B. identified Ridouan Taghi, a drug trafficker, as the main organizer behind a series of murders in this drug war. Taghi had moved with his parents to The Netherlands at a young age and started dealing in soft drugs before making the switch to cocaine. The newspaper Trouw claimed that it often involved shiploads worth millions of euros.

Image provided by Dutch police via The Guardian

In September 2019, attorney Derk Wiersum was murdered. He had been involved in the assassination cases that targeted both Taghi and another suspect, Said Razzouki. The murder of the lawyer, as well as the threats against witnesses and journalists, confirmed to Dutch police that "we live in a narco-state," The Guardian reported.

When Taghi was finally caught in December 2019, a trial against several leaders of the Mocro Mafia began. Called the Marengo process, it has been considered the biggest trial ever in Dutch history, according to NU.nl.

The most-wanted criminal after Taghi, Said Razzouki, was captured in 2020. According to the Mail Online, he had been hiding in Colombia without using his social media or leaving the house for more than three hours.

Image: Colombian National Police via TeleMedellín

"We practically had to return to techniques such as the Search Bloc used to locate Pablo Escobar," the Colombian police was quoted in the Mail, "since this individual applied mechanisms to hide and evade the authorities."

In the summer of 2021, the violence in Amsterdam reached a new boiling point. Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries was shot and killed in the center of Amsterdam in broad daylight. Newspaper AD reported that the motive for the assassination was De Vries' interference in the Marengo process.

A year later, a member of the Dutch Mocro Mafia was arrested in Barcelona for his involvement in the murder of Peter R. de Vries. He was extradited to the Netherlands and is currently on trial along with other big names in the Mocro Mafia.

Image: Logan Armstrong / Unsplash

According to the magazine Panorama and the TV series 'Costa del Crime,' the Spanish Costa del Sol is a gathering spot for Dutch criminals - specifically, the Mocro Mobsters who find themselves close to their homeland in coastal cities like Marbella, Algeciras, and Cádiz.

Meanwhile, threats against high-profile Dutch people have continued. While Taghi is awaiting trial with sixteen other Mafia men for at least ten assassinations, his alleged associates outside of prison are still targeting people from all walks of life, the newspaper Het Parool reports. Among them was Crown Princess Amalia in 2022.

But why is a princess among the targets? As newspaper De Telegraaf reported in 2022, Taghi has been in touch with another infamous jailed criminal of Moroccan descent: Mohammed Bouyeri (image), the man serving life in prison for a terrorist attack in 2004, when he killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

Because of this connection between the terrorist and the drug trafficker, as well as various threats made to people in The Netherlands and Belgium, the Mocro Mafia is now being considered as the umbrella for both drug crime and terrorist activities.

At the end of the Marengo trial, three main defendants, including Ridouan Taghi (photo), were sentenced to life in prison. NOS quoted the court in stating that Taghi was the "undisputed leader" who used "extreme violence" "to frighten people." For the "terror exercised by him... only life imprisonment was appropriate," the judge said. The court considered it highly plausible that Taghi would arrange for more murders if he were ever released, NOS added.

Image: still from video, De Telegraaf

While most defendants received long sentences, a deal was made with star witness Nabil B. He only has to serve ten years in exchange for the important information he provided about the others. According to NOS, the three murders during the trial - those of his brother (2018), his lawyer Derk Wiersum (2019), and journalist Peter R. de Vries (2021) - are all related to his role as the key witness.

Image: Dustin Scarpitti / Unsplash

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