How a Rotterdam criminal became an international drug lord
Yesterday 16:05
4 minutes
Born and raised Rotterdam resident Piet 'Costa' has long remained under the radar of the police and the judiciary. Last week he was sentenced to 17 years in prison. NRC reporter Jan Meeus examines in his new podcast how this previously unknown figure could become an international drug smuggler of stature within ten years. He tells about it at Speech Makers.

"He has been invisible for a long time," says crime reporter Meeus, who is doing research at home and abroad for the second season of the podcast series Cocaine Fever . "In 2018, his name was mentioned in the Telegraaf for the first time." According to Meeus, the rise of Costa is interesting because it keeps pace with the period in which the Netherlands became the hub in the cocaine trade worldwide.

The fifty-year-old Costa owes his name to the three years he spent in Costa Rica. He is suspected of extensive cocaine trade (including via pineapple plantations) and he is considered to be the client of the torture chambers that were found in Wouwse Plantage.

Colombian vacuum
Previously, the Italian mafia clan 'Ndrangheta was mainly involved in drug smuggling from Latin America to Europe, says Meeus. When the peace process cut off contacts with the FARC and the Americans stopped burning cocaine plantations in Colombia, there was a power vacuum and an abundance of coke.

Dutch drug criminals such as Piet Costa have "surfed along on this wave", says Meeus, who explains this process in the podcast with the help of a journalist from the American research platform Insight Crime.

'Candy'
According to Meeus, Piet Costa has been able to remain under the radar for a long time because he has not yet been associated with liquidations. "Pete was called a candy. If he was stolen, it didn't matter much to him." Until someone stole 100 million euros, Meeus says. "There the conflict has been eradicated, for which, according to the police and the judiciary, he built that torture container."