The Hague Godfather Piet Schneider (64) arrested.

An international investigation into a drug trafficking and money laundering led to 17 arrests on Wednesday including ten in the Netherlands, police said in a statement. Piet S., known in the criminal underworld as "De Dikke" and with reported ties to the illegal drugs trade and street level assassinations, was believed to be one of those taken into custody, the Telegraaf said.

Nearly a thousand police officers carried out dozens of raids simultaneously at locations in Belgium, Hungary, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Spain. The investigation was sparked by information uncovered by Dutch authorities when they gained access into the EncroChat system, an organization which provides encrypted phones.