The last few months Amsterdam has seen lots of gangland killings. This week it claimed the life of the girlfriend of one of the main players who was executed last year.


LUANA LUZ XAVIER, 34, KILLED IN FRONT OF HER KIDS

The woman who was shot and killed in Amstelveen yesterday, has been identified as Luana Luz Xavier (34), the girlfriend of the Amsterdam criminal Najib “Ziggy” H. In the criminal world she is accused of luring a target to a (failed) assassination attempt for her boyfriend H.

The Brazilian Luz Xavier was shot multiple times at about 19:30 last night on Beeckestijn in front of her teenage daughter and son. She could not be saved. The (presumably several) gunmen fled in a car, which was found burnt out a short time later on the corner of Haya van Somerenlaan and Joke Smitlaan, not far away from the crime scene.

Najib H., also known as Ziggy, is a criminal from the group around Gwenette Marta, who was executed in May. In the past H. has been accused of involvement in assassinations, but never with enough evidence. A few years ago he survived an assassination attempt in Amsterdam-Zuid. H. seems to be playing a larger, more managerial role after Martha’s death in May.

The now murdered Luz Xavier had been in circles around Gwenette Martha for some time. Since 2011 she owned a clothing store in the center of Amsterdam. In a lawsuit Martha called the store one of the companies with which he earned his money. A remarkable detail is that Luz Xavier transferred the business to a new partnership a few days before her death.

According to a comment on the internet by an apparent insider, Luz Xavier played a role in the attack on Chahid Y. In the environment Y. was accused of being a turn-cloak around the murder of Matha in Amstelveen. Luz Xavier’s boyfriend would have wanted to take revenge on Y. for that betrayal.

Gwenette Martha was executed on May 22nd on Amsterdamseweg in Amstelveen. He was exiting a kebab shop with Chadid Y. A BMW drove past from which men open fired on Martha with automatic weapons. Chadid Y. escaped unharmed.

According to the detailed comment on the internet, “a girl friend” of Ziggy H. (this probably refers to Luz Xavier) lured Chadid Y. to Almere on November 1st. There he became the target of an attack. The perpetrators planted a explosive in his car and gunmen fired on him and a passenger. They both escaped, Chahid Y. was injured.

The writer of the very detailed piece on the internet called Ziggy H. “the new boss of the group Martha”. According to him, H. wants Chahid Y. and his brother “cleaned up at all cost”. In the piece Ziggy H. was accused of several murders. The tipster named names of underworld figures who are in some cases considered involved by the police. The piece was removed again shortly after it was posted on the internet. According to the site administrator, this was done by order of the police.

http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/12/09/luana-luz-xavier-34-killed-front-kids/

These killings all have to do with a war between two Amsterdam-based criminal organizations mostly composed of local Dutch-Moroccan (and to a lesser extent Antillean, Moluccan and native Dutch) criminals. The rip-off of 200 kilos of cocaine at the port of Antwerp in 2012 is at the centre of these gangland killings. Everyone involved in this case is getting killed off.

HUNDREDS OF DUTCH-MOROCCANS IN ON STREET EXECUTIONS: REPORT

There is a bigger network of young Dutch-Moroccan criminals in The Netherlands than previously thought. Not dozens but hundreds of youths are in this web of drug dealers, gunmen, executers and facilitators. This group is tied to at least six executions and several extremely violent robberies in The Netherlands and in Antwerp, according to a police investigation.

The investigation followed a wave of executions that started in 2012. These youths went on the rampage in The Netherlands and then escaped to Morocco where they could be untouchable. Morocco does not extradite nationals.

A new treaty should put an end to that. Morocco does not want to be a hiding place for denizens that committed crimes abroad, and will now allow Moroccans to be prosecuted and punished according to Moroccan law. Minister Opstelten of Security and Justice did demand that the death sentence be scrapped for these cases.

The first Moroccan criminal who has been tried under this new treaty is Hamza B. The 26-year old is one of the suspects of a double-execution in the Staatsliedenbuurt in Amsterdam on the 29th of December, 2012. Two Moroccan-Dutch in their 20s were killed. The suspects shot at the police with a machine gun.

According to De Volkskrant, the vendettas and feuds in this group of organized criminals is called the Maroc (or Mocro) War. A war that started in Antwerp in 2012 with an argument over 200 kilos of cocaine. Drugs that were seized by Belgian customs officers. The Flemish-Moroccan family (known as ‘The Turtles’) that was receiving this shipment did not know it had been seized. They were blamed for stealing the drugs. Once the Belgian authorities reported the seizure, the drug cartel was already divided.

This argument was behind the assassination of Dutch-Morrocan Najeb Bouhbouh in October of 2012. The event fueled several more executions in The Netherlands, including the one in Amsterdam, and the assassination of underworld king pin Gwenette Martha in Amstelveen in May.

http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/07/31/hundreds-dutch-moroccans-street-executions-report/

PARANOIA RULES AMSTERDAM GANG WAR: POLICE

Even after 15 deaths in the past two years, the Amsterdam police think that the series of executions in the Amsterdam gang war is far from over.

In an interview with De Telegraaf Police Chief Pim Jansonius and prosecutor Jeroen van Berkel of the “anti-execution team” say that fear that the violence in the underworld will not slow down. “It is in our view no longer about missing cocaine. It sometimes involves paranoid behavior of leaders, who think that they are on a death list and therefore choose for the flight ahead. Self executing their supposed enemy.”

In the coming time the police wants to disturb the underworld by raiding lounges, coffee shops and restaurants. “But we can not promise that the killings will stop tomorrow.” said the police and prosecutor.

Technical traces to notorious murders in the criminal circuit are often difficult to find. “Partly because the getaway cars are set on fire”, says Jansonius. Suspects, relatives and friends of the victims also have “a very low willingness to cooperate”. “Many victims come from the environment. Almost no one dares to say anything.”

http://www.nltimes.nl/2014/12/10/paranoia-rules-amsterdam-gang-war-police/

While the media mostly concentrates on the "Moroccan war" as they call it, the Amsterdam-based native Dutch networks are at it as well. A well known MMA fighter was killed, presumably because he knew too much sensitive information on the network surrounding Danny K.

Former Pride Grand Prix fighter Hans Nijman shot to death in front of his gym

Hans Nijman, best known in MMA circles for being one of the participants in the 2000 Pride World Grand Prix tournament, was shot to death on Wednesday in front of a gym he partially owned in Holland in what was reported in the local media as a gangland killing.

Hans Nijman, a kickboxer and pro wrestler in Japan who fought in the now-legendary Pride Open Weight Grand Prix tournament in 2000, was shot to death on Wednesday while in his car in front of a gym he partially owned in Beverwijk, Holland, according to multiple Dutch media reports.

Nijman was 55.

There was conjecture the shooting was mob related. It took place just before 10 p.m. local time that night. People in the area reported hearing shots from automatic weapons. Two vehicles were later found on fire at a car park that was then sealed off. Dutch news sources labeled it a gangland killing.

It was reported in the local media regarding the death that Nijman’s name had come up in a number of investigations into drug dealing and blackmail. He was also reportedly linked with Dino Soerel, who is reputed to be an Amsterdam crime boss.

The killing came at a time when Fred Ros, who knew Nijman from his gym, was testifying for the government in a major gangland trial in Amsterdam.

Nos TV in Holland reported that another former kickboxer, pro wrestler and MMA fighter, Dick Vrij, who co-owned the Top Team gym, was in voluntary police custody after learning over the summer that his life could be in danger.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/11/9/718...in-front-of-his

My point of view?

The Moroccan criminals killing each other off are the result of the fear and paranoia within the underworld which not only involves Dutch-Moroccans. The "lost transport" in 2012 has something to do with it, but it probably wasn't the first transport that turned out to be a major fuckup. It is assumed that one of the transport "organizers" had gathered a whole lot of "investers". The group that organized the transport was Dutch-Moroccan, but the investers came from all over the Dutch underworld: presumably connected to the transport by means of investment were Moroccan, Antillean and Moluccan groups from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, an Antillean criminal organization based in The Hague, a Dutch Traveller organization from the South Holland/Rotterdam area, as well as well-entrenched ethnic Dutch groups from Amsterdam (such as the Danny K. group). Other non-Netherlands based gangs connected to the transports were a British and an Irish group and a Colombian criminal organization. All of the connected gangs had a lot to win from the transport(s) and invested a lot of money in it. Money they now lost thanks to the transport fuckups.

It is assumed that the group surrounding Gwenette Martha, now dead, was behind the theft of the load cocaine the Dutch-Moroccan gang imported. Martha's group also had a lot of Moroccan members and in effect most of the casualties are Moroccan. That's why the media labels it the "Moroccan mafia war". These guys are all killing each other off out of fear for their own lives. Before the transport ever got organized it is said that one of the members of the Moroccan group told each and every investor that he could hold him accountable if the transport would go wrong. And boy did it go wrong.

always great to go beyond n. america and italy

thanks for posting this kill

mind pointing out some more intel on this "transport fuckup" you're talking about? sorry but my knowledge on that whole part of europe is extremely limited

This so-called "war" mainly concerns two sides: the Gwenette Martha group (even though Martha himself and his lieutenant Najib are now dead) and the Houssine Ait S. group. Ait S. is also a former lieutenant of Martha who started for himself when Martha was locked up.

Martha was originally from Curaçao in the Netherlands Antilles. He grew up in Amsterdam and came up surrounded by several other guys who would later become names in the Amsterdam underworld: some Antilleans and Surinamese and the Moluccan Belserang brothers (one of whom is now dead, while the other is the leader of the Amsterdam Satudarah chapter- a predominantly Moluccan biker gang, although they have Dutch and Surinamese members as well). It was only later that he began to work a lot with Moroccan criminals from Amsterdam-West.

It is alleged that when Martha heard that the firm surrounding his former lieutenant Ait S. was planning to import a large shipment of coke using the port of Antwerp (which is used a lot by Netherlands-based criminals) and that members of the Antwerp El Y. family were going to unload the shipment, he contacted the El Y. family (with whom he had relations, something the Ait S. gang didn't know) to steal the cocaine instead of turning it over to his rivals. The cocaine went 'missing' and the Ait S. gang had a big problem, because there were a lot of heavy investors connected to the shipment. When suddenly El Y. members were driving around in new flash cars and wore new designer clothes and watches, underworld investors deployed a team of hitmen to Antwerp. One El Y. member was shot, another one was kidnapped and tortured,... No one knows if the El Y. family paid anything, in fact no one really knows for sure if Martha and the El Y. were in fact behind the ripoff. But it has been a war ever since between the two sides. First the killings were for the stolen cocaine, but now it's more because of paranoia.


There are also other feuds going on though. This summer Samir Bouyakhrichan was killed in Marbella. He was one of Amsterdam's biggest drug traffickers. It is not known if he has anything to do with the feud between the Martha group and the Ait S. group.
Bouyakhrichan worked a lot with English and Irish criminal organizations (many of who also use the port of Antwerp). Some of his shipments also went bad. Some believe that this was due to the activities of the organization surrounding Eleftherios Papadatos. He led an Antwerp-based smuggling gang mostly composed of local Greeks and operating from a Greek restaurant. He's an old guy (he's locked up now), but his gang has a vicious reputation for hijacking other criminals' drug shipments at the port. Papadatos is believed to be behind murders as well. Maybe he sabotaged some of Bouyakhrichan's shipments, which caused bad blood between Bouyakhrichan and the English and Irish gangs which caused B's death.
Or maybe Bouyakhrichan was killed because of his former feud with a Dutch Traveller (which are just ethnic Dutch people living in trailer parks, but who like the Irish Travellers have their own distinct culture) gangster which caused the accidental death of the Traveller's young son.
No one knows anything for sure at the moment.

thank you kill

great intel

I've been looking into this a great deal as well in the last couple of months. I was so focussed on Canada that I completely overlooked what was going on in my own backyard. It is unclear who was behind the lost cocaine transport in Antwerp. Gwenette Martha's group was supposedly hired to find out what had happenened. But there was already a rivalry between Martha and one of his old associates, who had set up the cocaine deal through Antwerp. Apparantly the Colombians were also in on it as well as Samir "Scarface" Bouyakhrichan, who was believed to be the biggest of the Moroccan criminals. He was living the high life in Marbella, Spain, and had asked Martha to investigate. When Martha's rival suspected him of having hired an assassin they decided to strike first and that is when all hell broke lose. My opinion is that this guy had planned this all along in attempt to take over by eliminating Martha, and then Samir Scarface, who apparantly did not worry about his own safety. I think that the group of Martha's rival is now trying to consolidate their victory by going after remnants of Martha's group. Supposedly these thugs were inspired by the Italian Mafia serie Capo dei Capi and are now imitating the Corleonesi by taking over with brute force and eliminating all opposition.

Yeah right now there's a lot of speculation on what exactly the big picture is. Nothing is really certain. Samir's death may or may not have something to do with the Martha-conflict. I think that, as you point out, there is a connection. But Bouyakhrichan apparently made more enemies than just the ones he had in Amsterdam.

Either way, the media is having a ball right now
They're not that fond of Moroccans anyways. And now that there is something going on that can be labelled the "Moroccan mafia" they've really found their new gangland cash cow. The Moroccans aren't the only ones active in Amsterdam though and I'm sure they're not the only ones to cash in on the cocaïne trade. Other groups, some of whom may also be Moroccan but a lot of whom are not, are flying under the radar. The traditional Dutch Amsterdam underworld doesn't have the same exposure it used to have. And they don't have a monopoly on criminal rackets anymore. But they're also still active. And I would be surprised if Hans Nijman's murder wouldn't have anything to do with them. The Turks also had a new gangland killing recently.

But the Dutch, the Turks, the Serbs,...they're all old news, something people have seen before. The Moroccans, Antilleans and Moluccans are fresh talent to add to the ethnic criminal landscape. So the media is undoubtedly going to exploit that.

Definitely.

However, I think that Hussein had a hand in Samir's death one way or another. He was working with Samir and acted as a messenger between him and the Colombians. By doing so he was in an excellent position to take over Samir's network. I think he simply bided his time. Samir was responsible for some fuckups and because of that may have fallen out of favor of his partners. It could very well have been the Colombians or the Irish gangsters who decided to kill Samir and making new arrangements with Hussein as Samir's replacement for the Dutch market.

Absolutely. I think that your theory definitely would fit the bill. I don't get the impression the feud is finished, even though almost all of the main players in the former Martha crew are dead now. It seems that more heads of Moroccan and Antillean key players are going to roll.

But the thing that makes this gang war so noticable is that the hits are done in such an unprofessional manner, not unlike what we see in Marseille between the Algerian crime bosses over there. In the past the Dutch, Turkish, Serb and Chinese hits were all extremely professional. Almost none of them were solved. But the Moroccan hits going on right now mostly lead to inexperienced young guys like Rida Bennajem who desperately want to belong to the big guys. Those kids have tons of arrogance and are prone to violent behavior, but at the end of the day they don't have the necessary brains and skills. Kids like these are used by the big gangsters in their community to do the dirty work resulting in loud, abrasive and plain unnecessary explosions of violence. And at the end of the day those young guys don't get any of the money they thought they had earned, are immediately signalled by the cops and have to go on the run. Or worse, are executed by the bigger gangsters before they start talking to the police.
Like Montreal, this will continue to go on for a long time. And now with the Hans Nijman hit the traditional Amsterdam underworld has also made it known that they're still around.

And I wonder what is going on with Etous Belserang? It has been exceptionally quiet about him. He's one of Martha's former childhood friends and survived one or more assassination attempts. He's also a shady individual, reputedly holding lots of influence in criminal Moluccan spheres (who as a community as a whole don't have the same bad name the Moroccans and the Antilleans have. Rightfully so, because on the streets they don't at all cause the same nuissance some Moroccan kids can cause. But their community is extremely secluded, more so than the Moroccan one. And there are individuals within Moluccan communities that are involved in shady practices. Examples are the so-called "Tattoo killers" with whom Belserang reputedly had links or the raids in the Moluccan neighborhood of Maastricht last year where traces of illegal gambling were discovered as well as an amount substances used to manufacture synthetic drugs). And even though Belserang is a leader of an outlaw motorcycle gang, he was more seen being driven around in cars such as Range Rovers than he is seen riding a motorcycle himself.

Wasn't Badr Hari one of Martha's goons?

These guys really are the new cocaine cowboys. Especially the hit in the Staatsliedenbuurt was reminiscent to the sloppy hit in a Miami shopping centre in 1980.

Btw it was Hussein who is believed to be behind the murder of Boneko Belserang. He had hired the tattoo killers to do the job for him.

@huron: He allegedly was, but he then again also was seen as a thug working for a turkish criminal called papa mike. Not sure if he was in actual business or just sponsored by these guys.

Had a couple of questions for you fellas.
Has anyone of you read mocromaffia and is it worth reading it?

What about Benaouf A., during the beginning phase of this conflict until his conviction he was seen as the one fighting Martha. It was about this ransom money Benaouf had to give to Martha after getting it from the turtles family, when he was hired to do the job by Martha.

What about the stolen cocaine? I read somewhere that the turtles weren't lying at all and the cocaine indeed was confiscated.

Any more info on this Hussein guy?

Also how are the other ethnic criminal groups doing? From the media attention this conflict gets i am getting the feeling that these guys dominate Amsterdam.

Compare it to the hit with Turkish guy that was killed with only one bullet.

@Yigido

I've read the book "Mocro maffia". You won't really learn anything new, but it gives a good overview of the entire conflict. It's also a very quick and entertaining read.

With Benaouf I got the impression he has sided with the group of Houssine Ait S. He's originally from Eindhoven, but while working at bars and gyms throughout Amsterdam he got into contact with some of the big Moroccan (and Antillean) criminals. He's a smooth guy, immediately well liked by people around him. But when he really slipt into the underworld he allegedly was extremely determined to prove himself. He's ambitious but inexperienced, which makes him a bit too ambitious for his own good. After the Houssine group split off from Martha, Benaouf sided with Houssine. It's said that Benaouf was one of the main organizers of the infamous cocaine shipment at the port of Antwerp. He allegedly really travelled throughout the Netherlands to form contacts with other career criminals who would act as investors of the transport. Supposedly he was the one promising to the criminal investors that if something would go wrong with the shipment, they were allowed to hold him personally accountable.

The "stolen" cocaine remains a mystery. First it was assumed that the "Turtles" (the El Y. family) stole the cocaine as a favour to Martha. The fact that the Turtles were suddenly driving around in new expensive cars, wearing new designer clothes and jewelry as well as poppin bottles in every club from Antwerp to Tangier didn't really help them. You could call it suspicious to say the least. Getting the Turtles to do the job also wasn't really a well-thought out move from Houssine's group. They were a final solution. One of the more famous "unload crews" in Antwerp, Papadatos' group, fucked so many Netherlands-based gangs over that no Dutch group trusted him anymore. And when you decided to strike back at Papadatos, the Greeks would allegedly kill or hurt you quicker than you could do to them. Adding to this, some other Antwerp unload crews were in fear of the Greeks so it was risky to let them do the job as well. The Turtles were thought to be reliable by Benaouf, but what he apparently didn't know back then was that they had a history with Martha, something Houssine's group found out later. This all added to the suspicion.
But on the other hand, the police afterwards DID say they had confiscated a shipment at the same time Benaouf's one went missing. And at first people were going around telling that the Turtles had to pay an insane amount of ransom to compensate for the stolen load (and also to prevent their little brother from getting put through a meat grinder by a group of enforcers), but there are also many who doubt that story. The stolen cocaine remains a mystery.

There isn't much information to be found on Houssine Ait S. other than that he was one of Martha's former lieutenants who started for himself and took over some of his contacts when Martha was locked up. The book is more about characters like Rida Bennajem and Benaouf and only mentions Ait S. a couple of times. But he seems to be the main guy from his group, the leader with the necessary contacts.

Those guys killing each other off right know are just part of the two of the groups operating in Amsterdam right now. According to law enforcement are dozens of them operating in the area that are quietly slipping under the radar. You have the group of the now deceased Samir and Bahida. They were/are bigger than the groups that are interlocked in this so-called "Moroccan war". Apparently they supported Houssine's group, but they really belong to another outfit. While it may seem that those two feuding groups "run" Amsterdam, the so-called "Moroccan mafia" is in reality more of a hype. Now they definitely are serious gangsters who made a lot of money from the cocaine trade and they definitely are organized crime. But they're far from the only ones operating in and around the capital. For instance, there supposedly is also a group from Zaanstad composed of Antilleans, Surinamese and Moluccans that's just as big as the Moroccan groups that mostly come from West-Amsterdam. And it's said that there is at least a dozen of these kind of groups operating in the capital.
And then we're just talking about the "new" and upcoming organized crime firms that originate from the impoverished main immigration areas. Not about the traditional crime "powerhouses" in the capital: the native Dutch firms (often linked with the Hells Angels), the Turkish groups (often having good connections with the Dutch), the Chinese Triads (Hong Kong Triads like 14K, Sun Yee On and Wo Shing Wo as well as Taiwanese Triads and Fujianese groups all operate in Amsterdam) and the Serbian/Montenegrin groups. While it has been exceptionally quiet about the Serbs, all of the traditional powerhouses are still going strong in the capital. They just don't make as much noice as they used to and more importantly, they have much better connections in the upperworld and are more professional in making use of corruption than the upcoming gangs are.
There are also other groups that have a presence. They don't really belong to the "powerhouses" but they have a presence nonetheless. All of the major Italian forms of OC (Sicilian mafia, Ndrangheta, Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita), the Yakuza, Albanian, Kurdish, Irish, Russian, British (often from Liverpool) and Bulgarian gangs all have been detected in the capital. Mostly they find shelter in Amsterdam, but they also operate some businesses over there.
The newer Moroccan-Antillean-Surinamese-Moluccan groups are comparable to the Algerian gangs in Marseille. They're ambitious and are gradually making their transition towards organized crime (in turn getting more and more accepted by the traditional powerhouses- in Marseille's case the Corsicans), but they still have quite some way to go in terms of professionalism.

Benaoef is working for Hussein, who is dating his sister. Benaouf is made out to be the one in charge while he's just acting on behalf of Hussein, who's calling the shots from Morocco.

I've also read Mocromaffia. It's a must-read if you're interested in this conflict, but imo is was released a little too soon as the conflict is still ongoing. It could be that they will add an epiloque to it in the near future.

These are all small groups with only a handful of guys that form the inner-core and who use murder for hire to get the job done. In the end the one with the contacts and the money is the one who has the power. This used to be Samir Scarface, now it is someone else.

The problem with Dutch organized crime is that is is very fragmented and composed of small groups of tough guys who are far from sophisticated. And everyone wants a piece of the action. They are nothing like the Italian Mafia.

Thanks for the info guys!

What I am wondering is if this war actually will put them out of their cocaine trade.
And if they will be replaced by another group which has happened before in Amsterdam.