European cocaine kingpin has high level protection in Sierra Leone

NAIROBI/THE HAGUE: One of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, convicted cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers, has found refuge and high-level protection in Sierra Leone, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter as well as photos and video footage seen by Reuters.

The images and accounts shed fresh light on the role of the West African nation, which international law enforcement officials say is a transshipment point for large volumes of Latin American cocaine headed to Europe.

Leijdekkers, who is Dutch, was sentenced in absentia to 24 years in prison on June 25 by a Rotterdam court for smuggling more than 7 tonnes of cocaine. Dutch police have said he was believed to be living in Turkey until recently.

A spokesperson for the Dutch prosecutors’ office told Reuters on Friday in response to questions about his whereabouts that he has been living in Sierra Leone for at least six months. Two of the sources with knowledge of the situation said Leijdekkers had been in Sierra Leone since at least early 2023.

“It is the highest priority of police and prosecutors to get him to the Netherlands to serve his sentence. We are doing everything we can in that regard,” Dutch prosecutors’ office spokesman Wim de Bruin said, declining further comment.

Reuters was not able to reach Leijdekkers. The Dutch judges who convicted him noted in their court ruling that he did not mandate an attorney to put forward a defense on his behalf in court. Guy Weski, the lawyer who last represented Leijdekkers in the Netherlands did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Videos and photos of a church mass in Sierra Leone on Jan. 1, 2025 show Leijdekkers, 33, sitting two rows behind Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, next to a woman.

Reuters identified Leijdekkers by using five different facial recognition tools to compare the man at the church, as seen in a video and images on Facebook and in another video on YouTube, with photos of Leijdekkers released by Europol in 2022. The tools all determined they were a match, ranging between 82 - 98% confidence.

The three sources said the woman was Bio’s daughter Agnes and that Leijdekkers was married to her. Reuters could not confirm the relationship. Agnes Bio did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent to her email and her social media accounts. The mass was held at St Joseph’s Catholic Church in the president’s hometown of Tihun, in southern Sierra Leone.

The three sources said Leijdekkers has high-level protection in Sierra Leone, where they said he frequently spends time. The sources declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter. Sierra Leone’s Information Minister and Government Spokesperson Chernor Bah did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent to him via WhatsApp.

Leijdekkers is on Europol’s list of most wanted fugitives.

In a Sept. 4 update on the wanted notice for him, Dutch police said he was “one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking.” They said the 7,000 kg of confiscated cocaine shipments that were behind his 2024 conviction were likely a fraction of his business.

Citing intercepted communications, Dutch police said that Leijdekkers “has probably been laundering tens of millions of euros and hundreds of kilos of gold that may have been earned from the cocaine trade”. Reuters has no independent evidence to confirm that. Over the last two decades, West Africa has become a major transit point for large volumes of cocaine being smuggled from Latin America to Europe, recording a number of large seizures of the drug.

Last year, members of a UK-based crime group were imprisoned for trying to smuggle 1.3 tonnes of cocaine, worth 140 million pounds, into the UK from Sierra Leone. Reuters could not establish if Leijdekkers was involved in the deal.

Dutch prosecutors have offered a 200,000-euro ($210,000) reward for tips that lead to the arrest of Leijdekkers, the highest ever for any Dutch fugitive.