At top are still the so called "Dutch Networks" also known as Penoze.

Historical coincidence has it that the countries from which large numbers of people came to the Netherlands in the 1960s and 1970s developed into leading producers and transit traders of the main drug types for the European market in the 1980s and 1990s. By far the most heroin comes from Turkey, the Surinamese and Dutch Antilles as well as the Aruban connection connect Colombia with its cocaine trade to Europe, Morocco has developed into the most important producer of hash. In all these countries, large criminal drug groups have recently developed or the pre-existing underworld has shifted its focus to drug trafficking. They are as connected to the political and economic centers of power of their country as the transnational groups in Italy or Colombia.

All foreign or transnational crime groups that have been identified in the Netherlands are involved in the drug trade, but their function differs according to the position they occupy within the range of activities between production and consumption. These groups can be divided into three categories. There are groups whose headquarters are in the drug producing countries (Colombia and other South American countries). Then there are groups that have their headquarters in the countries where drugs are bought and consumed (Italy). Finally, there are groups led from countries where drugs are neither produced nor consumed, and which focus only on smuggling (China, Ghana, Nigeria). There are also transnational groups that also deal in drugs, but for whom this is not a main activity in the Netherlands (the Russian 'mafia' and the gangs of former Yugoslavs).