A legal misunderstanding between Spain and the Netherlands means that the drug lord is now at large. He was arrested in January in the holiday paradise of Marbella Marbella after a five-year police hunt, where he has been on Interpol’s list of the most wanted people in Europe.
The police authorities in Marbella arrested him in January for money laundering through the purchase of 172 properties on the Costa del Sol in Spain.
When the Dutch authorities found out about this, they immediately asked for an extradition to the country for large-scale drug trafficking. This was first approved by the national court in Madrid, but rejected by the local provincial courts in Malaga, as they wanted him to be tried for the money laundering first.
When the national court accepted this, and then had to cancel the extradition temporarily pending the Spanish court round. However, they forgot to issue a ruling that he still had to be kept in custody pending the court’s decision.
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Released on bail – disappeared
So when the hearing started in Malaga, the judge granted a request from the drug lord’s lawyers that he could be released on bail of 50,000 euros, equivalent to almost 600,000 Norwegian kroner. The drug lord happily paid for this and since then no one has seen a trace of him.
The court believed, according to the BBC, that confiscating his passport, as well as ordering him to report to court every 15 days, would be enough to ensure that one of Europe’s most wanted criminals would stay in the city.
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According to El Pais, the court in Madrid has already issued a new arrest warrant for the 46-year-old.
They refer to sources in the Spanish security forces, who are said to be very unimpressed by the red tape, given how complex and difficult it had been to apprehend him. Even the day before his arrest, he managed to escape from the security forces on a motorcycle. The Dutch authorities are also not particularly enthusiastic about their Spanish colleagues’ handling of the case, and Dutch representatives are said to have appeared in person at the judge’s office in Madrid to express their displeasure.
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Journalist murder and royal kidnapping threat
Bouyakhrichan also goes by the nickname “Taxi” and is said to be the leader of the notorious Morco mafia, which is linked, among other things, to the murder of the well-known investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries in 2021.
Princess Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands had to flee abroad after the kidnapping threats. Photo: Piroschka Van De Wouw / Reuters
The mafia is also suspected of having planned to kidnap the Dutch heir to the throne Catharina-Amalia (20) in autumn 2022. The country’s Prime Minister Mark Rutte is also said to have been on the list of high-profile targets.
The criminal gangs with Moroccan roots are mainly based in Amsterdam. They take advantage of the soft drug policy in Europe’s fifth largest economy and smuggle large quantities of cocaine via the port of Rotterdam.
