Sunday, July 11, 2021

The Top Journalist, the Mafia Boss and the Gunman: Dutch Fear the Rise of ‘Narco Crime’

THE OBSERVER: While Peter R de Vries fights for life in an Amsterdam hospital the nation reflects on how to end the grip of drug gangs

Five gunshots blasted like fireworks on a sunny evening, just behind Amsterdam’s busy Leidseplein. To the horror of the Netherlands, a cold-blooded shooting has left prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R de Vries fighting for his life in hospital.

Everyone from European leaders to the Dutch king Willem-Alexander and Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema have expressed their shock at the ambush of “national hero” De Vries as he walked back to his car on Tuesday after recording a chatshow, on a busy street in broad daylight.

Within hours, the Dutch police arrested two men on the A4 motorway and are holding a 21-year-old from Rotterdam and a 35-year-old Polish national. The younger man has been named in Dutch media as rapper Delano G, the Polish man as Kamil Pawel E.

But many are speculating whether it is coincidence that De Vries, who made his name reporting on the kidnap of brewing magnate Freddy Heineken in the 1980s, has recently been involved in a high-profile gangland drug and murder court case, known as the Marengo trial. » | Senay Boztas | Saturday, July 10, 2021

You will find more about this brutal attack here and here.