DUTCH authorities are offering a €200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of drug trafficker Joseph Johannes Leijdekkers, better known as ‘Bolle Jos’ or ‘Jos el Gordito’.
According to El Pais, The 34-year-old fugitive is believed to be one of the key figures behind the huge cocaine shipment discovered aboard the cargo ship Arconian.
The vessel departed from Sierra Leone before being intercepted by the Guardia Civil near Dakhla in Western Sahara, recently incorporated into Morocco.
Officers reportedly found the drugs hidden behind a welded wall and guarded by six armed men.
Investigators say the seizure points to the Mocro Maffia, the violent Dutch-based criminal network that controls large parts of Europe’s cocaine trade.
Leijdekkers has strong links to the Costa del Sol, where authorities believe he built contacts with international traffickers while living in Puerto Banus.
He allegedly rose through the criminal underworld using networks tied to cocaine smuggling routes stretching across Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Dubai and West Africa.
Dutch courts have already sentenced him in absentia to 24 years in prison for six drug shipments totaling nearly 7,000 kilos of cocaine, an armed robbery in Finland and ordering a liquidation.
Meanwhile Belgium has handed him another 13-year sentence for drug trafficking and violent organised crime offences.
The case has also revived attention on the disappearance of Moroccan trafficker Naima Jillal, known as the ‘godmother of coke’, in Amsterdam in 2019.
She played a leading role in the international cocaine trade, with ties to clans in Puerto Banus and Estepona.
Images found photos on seized phones allegedly showing a woman tied to a chair suffering torture.
Investigators believe the victim may have been Jillal and suspect Leijdekkers was directly involved in her murder.
Attention has also focused on Sierra Leone, where Leijdekkers is believed to have been hiding for the past two years under high-level protection after appearing in a social media video alongside the daughter of president Julius Maada Bio.
Despite repeated extradition requests from Dutch authorities, Leijdekkers remains at large and Europol continues to warn the public not to approach him because he is considered highly dangerous.
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