Drug lord Roger P. (50) disappears behind bars for fifteen years because of large-scale cocaine trafficking. The Rotterdammer, better known as 'Piet Costa', is considered a leader in Dutch organized crime.

Eric Oosterom 11-04-22, 14:46 Last update: 11-04-22, 17:21
P. heard the verdict unmoved on Monday afternoon. In the Rotterdam court he appeared again with a hood over his head and a mouth cap in front. He spoke once: when the judge asked him if he understood the verdict, he said he did.

The Public Prosecution Service (OM) previously described P. as a superpower that operated under the radar for years: he let himself be driven around in cheap cars, lived at various addresses and even had a 'man' to make restaurant reservations.

It enabled P. to rustle up large-scale cocaine shipments. The Public Prosecution Service held the Rotterdammer responsible for three lots - of 1015, 3776 and 1200 kilos respectively - of the white gold, but suspected that his actual trade was much larger.

Record year
According to the officers, the ambitions of the Rotterdammer were also great. For example, P. and his companions would have talked about an unprecedentedly expensive batch of no less than 25,000 kilos. By way of comparison: in the whole of 2021, an absolute record year, the investigative services plucked 70,571 kilos of cocaine - street value: more than 5 billion euros - from containers within the port of Rotterdam .

According to the OM, P. lived for years like God in France. He ate in the fanciest restaurants, so to speak, walked around with tens of thousands of euros and drank the most expensive cognacs.

The Rotterdammer was arrested in the summer of 2020, after the police and the judiciary discovered him through the EncroChat hack. This encrypted chat service was extremely popular among criminals. EncroChat messages therefore formed the most important evidence against P. and the eight suspects who were on trial in the same trial.