From secret stashes in the woods and backyard, a gang of Helmond supplies cocaine dealers all over the city. Leader Boub is considered the drug king of the city.

In conversations he is called the “king” or “master”. Conversely, he calls his dealers “soldiers”. According to the law, it appears everywhere that Boub L., an illegal Algerian, dominated the cocaine trade in Helmond as a gang leader. “They are pretending to be Pablo Escobar from Helmond,” his lawyer Christian van Dijk mocked the infamous drug dealer from Colombia on Tuesday prior to the lawsuit. “That’s not right.”

‘That for the nose’

According to the judiciary, observations and hundreds of tapping conversations at least paint the picture of an oiled cocaine gang. Over the phone it was about “pieces”, “grams”, “that for the nose” and sometimes even literally “cocaine”. After a few months, they knew enough at the investigative services and ten gang members were lifted from their beds. Five of them were tried in court on Tuesday.

According to prosecutor Erna Vrijhoeven it was all done. A terraced house on Van Hooftstraat, Binnenstad-Oost, served as the gang’s headquarters. There it was a coming and going of dealers and customers. Drugs were collected, money was given. For a gram of coke, roughly fifty euros had to be tapped, dealers took a ten profit on every transaction.

Buried coke

The coke itself was buried in stashes, stashes . One of them was located in the Bakelsbos, near the bicycle bridge of the Sjef de Kimpepad. Agents saw one of the gang members search for the specific spot while hearing the monitored conversation how he was directed by gang leader Boub.

If the police found 8 October 2018 the entire gang decides to count, the entire forest is therefore combed out. The suspected stock location is also found thanks to detection dogs and metal detectors. But there is no more than some empty sealing bags – often used to trade coke. It is a hit at the “headquarters” in Hooftstraat. There, nearly half a kilo of drugs is buried at the foot of a grape tree.

Years in prison

According to officer Vrijhoeven, it would be naive to think that the gang only trafficked drugs during the months when the police observed her. “Without him, all of Helmond would be without coke,” a witness sketches his position in the city. Vrijhoeven knows enough and demands 3.5 years, of which six months are conditional. The requirement for his right hand Nafih B. is slightly lower: 2.5 years in prison. The other three have been detained long enough and do not have to go back to jail from the Public Prosecution Service.

Source: ED