Dutch police help arrest former Pink Panther leader May 12, 2023
The Dutch police cooperated in an international action in the Balkans against a large organized crime organization. One of those arrested was a former leader of the 'Pink Panthers'.
The European police organization Europol claims that with the raids and arrests in this case last Thursday, the largest drug organization in this region has been killed.
A total of 23 suspects were arrested. Earlier, in 2021, seven members of the group were already arrested in Belgium. Two people had already been arrested in connection with other crimes in Serbia and Peru. On May 8, a suspect was arrested in the Netherlands. Three of the arrested suspects are said to be leaders of the organization.
Explosives 35 house searches were carried out. Fifteen luxury cars were seized, expensive jewelery and watches worth an estimated two million euros, and nearly three million euros in cash. Police found two sniper rifles, three automatic rifles, firearms, silencers, detonators, remote controls for explosives, packs of explosives, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
The action is the result of the police hack into the encrypted message server Sky ECC. The Dutch police helped to find the organization's Serbian king pins. The organization is said to be behind the smuggling of thousands of kilos of cocaine from South America and West Africa to Europe. Of this, 700 kilos could be traced to a seizure in the port of Rotterdam, 1.2 tons in Hasselt in Belgium, and 5000 kilos in Aruba.
Pink Panthers The gang is known in the criminal world for its use of violence and involvement in high-profile robberies. One of the leaders, according to Europol, was a former leader of the Pink Panther criminal group. They would be responsible, among other things, for the jewelry robbery at the TEFAF fair in Limburg in 2022.
