'Marco Ebben murdered by acquaintances to prevent him from being questioned by the police'
Jurjen Roerdinkholder

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The wanted Dutch criminal Marco Ebben was about to be arrested. Just before Mexican police officers could arrest him, he was murdered by his own people. That is what Mexican media write. The shooters (or their clients) are said to have feared that the drug criminal, convicted in the Netherlands, would talk too much under pressure.

Marco Ebben is said to have been murdered in Mexico.
© Telegraaf / Europol

Marco Ebben is said to have been murdered in Mexico.

According to Mexican media, Ebben, who was 32, was murdered by three armed men last Thursday shortly before noon as he walked to his armored SUV in Atizapán, a municipality in the 22 million-strong Mexico City metropolitan area. The Dutchman lived in the Rancho San Juan neighborhood, just a few minutes away from the shopping center where he was shot.

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Although the murder of the Schiedammer has not yet been officially confirmed by the Dutch authorities, four suspects have been arrested in Mexico.

Stories in the Mexican press suggest that the hit squad knew about Ebben's impending arrest in Atizapán and anticipated it. The city council had discovered that the Dutch criminal had settled in Rancho San Juan after he had come to Mexico to fight in Sinaloa in the cartel war between the two main factions of the Sinaloa cartel.

Marco Ebben participated in the fight between drug cartels
In the gang war between the factions of the sons of the drug barons Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who were imprisoned in the United States, Ebben fought on the side of the latter under his alias El Holandés. El Mayo and Ebben had been doing business together for eight years.

The Dutchman reportedly helped to get drug shipments to Europe. He would also supply weapons from Europe to the Sinaloa cartel, especially to the faction of Ismael Zambada.

In October 2024, father Henk Ebben was already in mourning after reports that Marco had died during a gunfight between rival drug gangs in Sinaloa. There were already doubts about that at the time. The police thought it was a set-up to make him disappear from the police radar.

After his death, which according to Mexican media was faked, Ebben went into hiding in Atizapán, one of the most prosperous places in the country. He pretended to be a businessman. From the suburb of Mexico City, he continued his activities for La Mayiza, as the El Mayo faction is called.

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What he did not know is that Atizapán is one of the few municipalities in Mexico where the police falls under the Ministry of the Navy. And the navy in Atizapán is not made up of sailors but of elite troops specialized in eliminating organized crime. Ebben, who went by the alias Jesús Antonio Velásquez Rivas in Mexico, had hidden in the lion's den.

Daily routine Marco Ebben
The anti-crime agents of the navy had been keeping an eye on Ebben for some time and knew his daily routine by heart, according to Mexican media. They wanted to arrest him in the middle of the day on Thursday, February 13, when the Dutchman, as he did almost every day, went to the Sports World gym. But the three murderers were ahead of the anti-crime team. Less than fifteen minutes before Ebben was to be arrested, he was reportedly shot dead in his sportswear while walking to his SUV.

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Wanted criminal Marco Ebben surfaces in Mexico: 'Takes part in war in Sinaloa cartel'
"Apparently they discovered that the army was after him," someone involved in the Europol investigation told the daily newspaper Mileno. "It is not yet known who wiretapped the criminals and how. But my impression is that they killed him to prevent him from being interrogated and telling everything he knew."

"That is a logical explanation if you look at how Ebben was murdered. He was killed as if he were an ordinary criminal, while he was a heavyweight, a 'peso pesado'," says the same source. "I believe that Ebben trusted his murderers and that is why he could not defend himself.