This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5892

Moroccan Criminal Gangs In Holland And Belgium Heavily Involved In Cocaine Smuggling

June 3, 2013


By EMERSON VERMAAT

June 3, 2013 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org - Moroccan criminal gangs in Amsterdam and Antwerp are heavily involved in smuggling cocaine, the Dutch TV news program "Brandpunt" recently reported. This cocaine originates from Latin America.

Latin American cocaine bosses discovered that it relatively easy to smuggle cocaine to Europe via the huge port of Antwerp. Belgian authorities do not have the manpower to check all the containers from Latin America.

Last January, the Amsterdam police tried to arrest a Moroccan criminal, but he jumped into one of Amsterdam's canals and managed to swim to the other side. The water was icy cold then. Suddenly, shots were fired, but not by the police. Moroccan criminals are killing other Moroccan criminals, both in Amsterdam and Antwerp – gang wars between rival groups about who will be in charge of the lucrative cocaine smuggling operations between Antwerp and Amsterdam. Yesterday's juvenile frequent offenders from immigrant neighborhoods in Amsterdam and Antwerp are today's seasoned and well armed criminals. These Moroccans spend lots of money in nightclubs, own Rolex watches and very expensive cars. Yet, they usually receive welfare money.

At the end 2012, four Moroccan drug criminals in Amsterdam's "Staatsliedenbuurt" who were driving a black Range Rover were targeted by other criminals who aimed their AK-47 machine guns at them. Two criminals managed to escape, the other two ­ – the nephews Said el Yazidi and Youssef Lekhorf, were killed. The killers did not even hesitate to shoot at the motorized police when they (the police) followed their stolen car.

Cocaine criminals in Holland hire Moroccan criminals in Antwerp who must transfer the drugs from the port of Antwerp to other destinations. These local Antwerp criminals know how to open the cocaine-laden containers. Last year, however, one of the most notorious Antwerp gangs, the so-called "Turtles" (the brothers "Turtle Hakim", "Turtle Ismael" and "Alpha Turtle"), stole 200 kilograms of Colombian cocaine. They told their bosses in Amsterdam that Belgian custom officials had intercepted those 200 kilograms. But what they did instead was selling the drugs themselves. From that moment on they began to lead a conspicuously luxurious life, driving expensive cars and traveling to Marbella, Spain. When the cocaine criminals in Holland discovered the truth they sent an Antillean hit team to Antwerp-Borgerhout where they abducted "Alpha Turtle," the youngest brother. They threatened to kill him unless a substantial sum of money was paid. They also tried to kill "Turtle Hakim." Thus, a gang war was triggered in Amsterdam and Antwerp.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Six months ago, Spanish police arrested a Moroccan gang of 31 people who were smuggling huge amounts of Hashish from Morocco to Holland and other European countries. And it not only drug trafficking that the Moroccan criminal networks are engaged in. In the Spanish enclave of Melilla, for example, Morrocan criminals have recently been arrested on suspicion of smuggling Moroccan babies into Spain. Some corrupt doctors in Morocco cooperated and provided forged birth certificates.


Muslim enclaves in Europe?

Moroccans and other North Africans as well as Turks, Nigerians and Somalis are among the most problematic groups of immigrants in Europe. "Somalis have reputation as the most troubled significant minority in Britain, and the numbers, even though a bit uncertain seem to bear this out," David Goodhart writes in a recent study on the successes and failures of post-war immigration in the United Kingdom. "About 3 percent have a higher-level qualification and the majority have no qualifications at all. The second generation are doing badly in school." "On welfare dependency, 39 percent of Somali households claim income support (easily the highest claim rate for an ethnic minority) and 40 percent claim child benefit (again the highest rate for an ethnic minority. And the community has a reputation, even among sympathetic Labour MPs and councillors, for gaming the welfare system." The same applies to the Somali communities in other European countries (notably Holland, Germany and Sweden) and the United States. There are the additional problems of polygamy and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Khat adiction and, last but not least, a dubious tendency to support militant or even terrorist Muslims or their organizations. Virtually all Somali immigrants hate Israel and the Jews.

Muslim enclaves where medieval "Sharia law" is being applied have been created in major European cities. Recently, the liberal Amsterdam newspaper "Trouw" reported that the "Schilderswijk," an immigrant neighborhood in The Hague, has partially become "an enclave of orthodox Muslims" who impose their objectionable religious views on others. They lash out at so-called "unbelievers" or "infidels" whom they call "kafirs." A Moroccan woman wearing a "Niqab" (a kind of Afghan "Burka") criticizes women who are still wearing "Western clothes."
Well, if these radical Muslims and their ilk don't like it here, why don't they emigrate straightaway to Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan?

There were also reliable and recent reports in the Dutch press about an important mosque in Amsterdam West where a Muslim fundamentalist from Kuwait is now officially in charge. This refers to Mutlaq Alqarawi, a top official ("assistant undersecretary") from the Kuwaiti Ministry of Religious Affairs who is also linked to the anti-Semitic Muslim Brotherhood. This Muslim fanatic has reportedly one mission only: making as many Dutch converts to Islam as possible. Critics were quoted in the Amsterdam newspaper "Het Parool." One of them said: "The Kuwaiti's very much like blue eyes." That is why numerous blond women from the West are so often harassed or even raped by aggressive and frustrated Muslim males in the Muslim world. In Britain, an extremely violent Pakistani "Sex Gang" and "Human Trafficking Gang" was convicted. These ruthless criminals abducted and raped young native British girls (the youngest was eleven years old), beating them into submission. Gang rapes were not uncommon.

A Moroccan author in Belgium recently issued a serious warning against the radicalization of Moroccans in Brussels. Bilal Benyaich, a political scientist from the Free University of Brussels, claims that Belgian authorities underestimate the number of militant Salafists in Brussels. There are several hundred of them, and ten percent are potential jihadists. He calls on fellow Muslims to really tackle the problem of radicalization within the Muslim community itself. Moreover, the Belgian government should be more active in cutting off financial support from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, Benyaich says. He also makes a courageous plea to reduce the number of mosques in Belgium.

What Benyaich says is also applicable to Holland, Britain, Germany and Sweden. The recent street riots in immigrant neighborhoods in Stockholm and other Swedish cities show that the traditional Western welfare state simply cannot cope with far too many immigrants from Third World countries, the Middle East and North Africa. Many of these immigrants are frustrated and angry young Muslim males who cannot find a job because they dropped out of school and are addicted to and spoiled by welfare. This what a local aidworker, an immigrant herself, said in a recent TV broadcast, and I agree with her. I am also really wary of political correctness which solely and lamely tends to lay the blame on Western societies.

In Britain alone, ninety-five percent of the terror plots are linked to anti-Western Muslim radicals. The most recent case is the killing of British soldier Lee Rigby by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, two second-generation Nigerian immigrants. It should be noted here that before he converted to Islam, Adebolajo had reportedly been "a member of a gang of knife-wielding street robbers" (Daily Mail). Nigerian and Jamaican gangs have a notorious reputation in Britain. They are extremely violent and also target other blacks – even minors – who lead decent lives. Moreover, Al-Qaeda has also successfully targeted young black Muslims or Muslim converts in the West. One of them was Jamaican-born British resident Germaine Lindsay who together with three other Muslim terrorists carried out the 7 July (2005) bombings in London – the so-called 7/7 bombings.


Immigration: certainly not always a success story

Immigation will only be a success story if the immigrants are willing and able to integrate into Western society and if they are not ecomically dependent on welfare. Non-Western and poorly educated immigrants often find it harder to integrate than Western immigrants. David Goodhart concludes: "Britain's brand of multiculturalism has allowed the well-equipped to succeed and the problem groups to flounder and self-segregate."
Especially conservative Muslims from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa and North Africa are prone to self-segregation, honor crimes and the like. Most of them really hate the West and the Jews. As Goodhart, a liberal himself, finds: "I have been told by quite-liberal minded white people in Beeston, the suburb of Leeds famous for being the home of the four London 7/7 bombers, that Pakistani Muslim neighbors will not talk to them."

About 120,000 immigrants enter Holland each year, Govert Bijwaard, a researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) finds. According to Bijwaard, many of those who are highly educated and originate from other European Union countries do not stay in Holland for too long – about 80 percent of them leave that country sooner or later. However, the lowly educated from Third World countries, Turkey and Morocco usually prefer to stay – about 70 percent of them stay in Holland. These immigrants often depend on welfare. Their children often drop out of school and, consequently, cannot find a job either. In too many cases they – the second-generation immigrants, that is – resort to crime. This is costing the Dutch taxpayer a huge amount of money. Other European countries, notably Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Britain are facing exactly the same problems. Bankrupt Greece is flooded by refugees from the Third World and the Middle East, and extremist and dangerous parties such as "Golden Dawn" are on the rise there.
In North America, a relatively high number of immigrants from Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean are involved in gang wars (Los Angeles!) or other forms of crime (notably drug smuggling, migrant trafficking, wife beating and gun violence).

Multiculturalism is fine, but too much of it will only destroy our society and our very freedoms. Even the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) is seen by some multicultural fanatics as an expression of "Western culture." As David Goodhart points out: "Academic multiculturalists are in danger of getting on the wrong side of democracy and of being hostile to a sense of democratic ‘ownership."' "Academic multiculturalism's over-sensitivity to the ‘second class citizen' status of minorities leads it to make unrealitistic and destructive demands on the political status quo – a sort of multicultural over-reach."



Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in the Netherlands. Website: emersonvermaat.com.


Sources:


KRO Brandpunt (Dutch TV), May 19, 2013; Bondkraagje (Netherlands), April 20, 2013 ("Schietpartij Staatsliedenbuurt").

Misdaadreporter.blogspot.nl (Netherlands), March 16, 2012 ("Amsterdamse drugsmaffia stuurt strafexpeditie naar Antwerpen"); Het Parool (Amsterdam), January 3, 2013 ("Youssef en Said waren niet het voornaamste doelwit") and April 11, 2013 ("Onderwereldvete achter Staatsliedenmoorden").

De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), May 10, 2013, p. 11 ("Netwerk babysmokkelaars opgerold").

NRC Handelsblad (Amsterdam), December 2012, p. 9 ("Politie Spanje rolt smokkelbende op").


David Goodhart, The British Dream. Successes and Failures of Post-War Immigration (London: Atlantic Books, 2013), p. 89 (Leeds), p. 204 ("multicultural over-reach"), p. 209 ("Britain's brand of multiculturalism"), p. 230 (Somalis in Britain).

Trouw (Amsterdam), May 18, 2013, p. 1 ("Haagse buurt domein orthodoxe moslims"); Trouw/De Verdieping, May 18, 2013, p. 6, 7 ("Als je wijk verandert in een ‘klein kalifaat'").

Het Parool, p. 1, 4, 5 ("Koeweit aan de macht in buurtmoskee Slotervaart"). "Sinds dinsdag staat Mutlaq Alqarawi, gelieerd aan de Moslimbroederschap, bij de kamer van koophandel vermeld als voorzitter van Europe Trust Nederland, de eigenaar van het gebouw, die de moskee runt."

KRO Brandpunt (Netherlands), June 2, 2013; Channel4 (Britain), May 22, 2013 ("The Hunt for Britain's Sex Gangs").

België Eén Journaal (Belgian TV news), May 29, 2013; Bilal Benyaich, Islam and radicalisme bij Marokkanen in Brussel (2013); Knack (Belgium), May 28, 2013 ("Bilal Benyaich: ‘Overheid onderschat aantal radicale moslims'").

Daily Mail (London), May 24, 2013, p. 2 ("Betrayal of a Hero Father"). Adebolajo "was jailed at least once for violence and friends said he was a member of a gang of street robbers in his hometown of Romford, Essex."

Govert Bijwaard, Retourimmigratie vanuit Nederland, Internationale Spectator (Clingendael Institute, The Hague), March 2013, p. 14-15 (highly educated and poorly educated immigrants in the Netherlands). "Van de arbeidsmigranten en studenten, die voornamelijk uit andere landen van de Europese Unie komen, kiest slechts een beperkt deel ervoor zich permanent in Nederland te vestigen, terwijl gezinsmigranten, die veel vaker uit ontwikkelingslanden komen (met name Turkije en Marokko) veel minder mobiel zijn."

©2013 Emerson Vermaat. All rights reserved.

This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/5892