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Direction: Christophe Bouquet & Mathieu Verboud
For centuries, Dutch prosperity has been based on global trade. But this has always had a dark side. Drugs, like opium and cocaine, are traded too.
The first part of this documentary shows how the Netherlands became the European hub for narcotics.
As early as the 17th century, Dutch colonialism laid the foundation for a lucrative drug trade. Opium from Indonesia financed the rise of the trading empire. This was followed by the cultivation of coca plants on Java - which formed the basis for Amsterdam's early cocaine production. Even when international bans officially ended the trade during World War I, the system survived, underground. In the interwar period, an illegal market emerged and continues to have an impact today.
After the Second World War, drug trafficking initially seemed to be a thing of the past. But the 1960s brought radical change: with the rise of counterculture, demand grew for hashish from Morocco and heroin from the Indian subcontinent. The Netherlands responded with a unique strategy - the separation of so-called hard and soft drugs. Coffee shops were aimed at regulating consumption. But criminal structures became entrenched. Figures such as Klaas Bruinsma, the "Dutch Al Capone,” became powerful drug lords.
In the 1990s, the country became the epicenter of synthetic drugs: ecstasy pills flooded Europe, and the profits flowed into real estate and the real economy. When the old underworld generation disappeared, young criminals from working-class neighborhoods took over. Their focus was on cocaine, the ‘new’ profitable drug. The documentary shows how colonial trade routes gave rise to a modern network that continues to shape Europe's drug market to this day.
For centuries, Dutch prosperity has been based on global trade. But this has always had a dark side. Drugs, like opium and cocaine, are traded too.
The first part of this documentary shows how the Netherlands became the European hub for narcotics.
As early as the 17th century, Dutch colonialism laid the foundation for a lucrative drug trade. Opium from Indonesia financed the rise of the trading empire. This was followed by the cultivation of coca plants on Java - which formed the basis for Amsterdam's early cocaine production. Even when international bans officially ended the trade during World War I, the system survived, underground. In the interwar period, an illegal market emerged and continues to have an impact today.
After the Second World War, drug trafficking initially seemed to be a thing of the past. But the 1960s brought radical change: with the rise of counterculture, demand grew for hashish from Morocco and heroin from the Indian subcontinent. The Netherlands responded with a unique strategy - the separation of so-called hard and soft drugs. Coffee shops were aimed at regulating consumption. But criminal structures became entrenched. Figures such as Klaas Bruinsma, the "Dutch Al Capone,” became powerful drug lords.
In the 1990s, the country became the epicenter of synthetic drugs: ecstasy pills flooded Europe, and the profits flowed into real estate and the real economy. When the old underworld generation disappeared, young criminals from working-class neighborhoods took over. Their focus was on cocaine, the ‘new’ profitable drug. The documentary shows how colonial trade routes gave rise to a modern network that continues to shape Europe's drug market to this day.
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00:01Long time considered as one of the most dangerous people in Europe,
00:04he was stopped in Dubai in 2019.
00:07With the disarticulation of a international network
00:10of trafficking of drugs, controlled by the afraid mafia.
00:13With the criminal organization organized,
00:15it will eventually throw the society out.
00:17The people don't meet on the street,
00:20the children don't go to the playground,
00:21you're afraid.
00:30The drug mafia has Europe firmly in its grasp.
00:34Shootouts, kidnappings, bomb attacks, executions, even torture chambers.
00:41Levels of violence once associated with Mexico or Colombia
00:45are now spreading across the major port cities of the Old Continent,
00:49in Rotterdam, Antwerp, Hamburg and La Havre.
00:54Smaller towns and rural areas are also affected.
00:57But the epicenter of this wave of organized crime isn't Marseille or Sicily.
01:03It's the Netherlands.
01:10In Ostorp, a district in the west of Amsterdam,
01:14the fight against drug trafficking is in full swing.
01:18From 2019 to 2024,
01:20this unassuming building hosted the landmark Marengo trial.
01:24It was unlike anything the country had seen before.
01:42Drug lords and their associates stood accused of 10 counts of murder or attempted murder.
01:48Even inside the courtroom, intimidation continued.
01:53It's a horrible trial.
01:55The prosecutors don't want to be known to the public.
01:58The judges don't want to be known to the public because fear is around this whole trial.
02:04During the proceedings, a lawyer for a witness and a prominent journalist were assassinated.
02:10The former prime minister and the crown princess also received kidnapping threats.
02:15Everybody was afraid.
02:17And all the participants in the trial were thinking,
02:21will I be next?
02:22Will I be the next one to be killed?
02:28The Marengo trial is considered historic.
02:30For the first time, it exposed close ties between street-level criminals,
02:36business figures and mafia bosses.
02:39A threat now spreading across Europe,
02:43whose origins all began here in the Netherlands.
02:49So, we were all asking ourselves, when will this stop?
02:52And why have we been in this mess?
03:11To find answers, we need to look back.
03:16What's happening in the Netherlands today is no accident.
03:20It's the result of a centuries-old model, built on global trade.
03:25For the first time, the optimize would destroy of the world.
03:33For the first time, the
03:46first time of programme steeper is a seed
03:49an array of
03:58In these low-lying wetlands, the Dutch built their country by and on the water.
04:06For generations, they constructed dikes along the coast
04:11to protect against external threats and serve as a gateway to global trade.
04:23Shipping routes, ports, canals, roads, railways.
04:29This flat landscape was engineered to keep goods moving efficiently and without interruption.
04:37In the Kingdom of the Netherlands, trade has always had the top priority.
04:46We are a country of tradesmen.
04:49You know, we're always at this crossroads where goods came in, goods were sent out,
04:56and there was people with money, bankers.
05:00The first stock exchange ever to be built was built in Amsterdam.
05:04So, we have always been this international place of business.
05:09And a big, I mean, a significant part of our wealth was earned in that time.
05:18For centuries, we've been quite active on the seas.
05:22Sailors, navigators, discoveries.
05:27We made posts in Africa, around South Africa.
05:31We were in South Africa.
05:32Also to the Dutch East Indies, to the Dutch West Indies.
05:35So, we were always trading.
05:36And we always had an economic interest in that.
05:39So, we are sailors, but we were also businessmen and traders.
05:43So, we stole, you know, all kinds of, you know, herbs, spices.
05:51We just stole it.
05:53We went to Southeast Asia, we went to Latin America, and we stole it.
05:57And took it here and pretended that we were really good business people.
06:01We were thieves.
06:11The story begins in 1581, with the founding of the Dutch Republic, as they broke away from Spain.
06:19What followed was a golden age, as the Netherlands rose to become a global trading power.
06:28As other European powers like France, England, Spain, and Portugal expanded, the Dutch built a network of trade-based colonies.
06:39In Indonesia, Southern Africa, Brazil, Suriname, the Caribbean, and North America, where New Amsterdam would later become New York.
06:50For the Dutch, one principle stood above all. Controlling territories must also mean controlling markets.
06:59Pepper, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, saffron, anise, cumin, as well as tea, tobacco, sugarcane, cocoa, and coffee.
07:08The Dutch bought raw goods from colonies and neighboring countries, processed them, and then resold them at high prices.
07:16In doing so, they laid the foundations of modern capitalism. Profit through added value.
07:29At the center of this system was the Dutch East India Company, or VOC, founded in 1602.
07:36Its fleet was larger than that of all other nations combined. The VOC was the first joint stock company in
07:44history, and one of the most powerful corporations ever created.
07:48The VOC, that's an interesting organization, because it was not the States, it was not the Netherlands, but it was
07:57a commercial enterprise, basically.
07:59People put money together, and they had ships, and they sailed the waves, and tried to conquer, in a way,
08:07new territories for profits.
08:11In the 17th century, trade and mercantilism combined with another Dutch passion, botany.
08:22Thanks to herbaria and the first classification systems, the trade in ornamental plants flourished in courts across Europe.
08:29In the Netherlands, tulips sparked a speculative frenzy. In 1637, the market collapsed, popping what is often called the first
08:40financial bubble in the history of capitalism.
08:44Those who'd avoided bankruptcy turned to other profitable crops, including the opium poppy.
08:55In the 18th century, they developed a monopoly on the import of opium in the Dutch East Indies.
09:03They manufactured opium in a smokeable form, and they sold it in opium dents, and it was quite profitable for
09:12them.
09:14By the 19th century, the Dutch state had taken direct control of the opium trade, using it to finance its
09:21colonies in Indonesia.
09:23They created a specially established administrative body, and used their strict state monopoly to curb illegal trade.
09:32There was a factory, a Dutch state owned factory, that made the root opium. It was packaged in official Dutch
09:41opium boxes, and it was sold by state shops owned by the state.
09:46It was very profitable. But on the other hand, there was another movement in a way that was, people were
09:52concerned about the open smoking in the Dutch East Indies.
09:57Opium smoking became a bad habit, a vice, bad for your health.
10:03So they experimented with a number of instruments to reduce opium use.
10:08They had a price policy, and they made it more expensive.
10:12And then they noticed that the illegal trades increased.
10:17When they made it too cheap to fight the illegal trade, to smugglers, then more people got addicted, and more
10:26smokers.
10:26And people smoked more.
10:28So they had to find the right balance, in a way. Not too expensive and not too cheap.
10:49Built at the height of the golden age by wealthy merchants, Amsterdam's canal side neighborhoods offer a picturesque backdrop.
11:01Yet much of that wealth came from what we would now call drug money.
11:11By the late 19th century, the Netherlands faced a dilemma.
11:15How to strike a balance between legality and illegality.
11:20Between public health and government revenue.
11:24Whether tobacco, alcohol or gambling.
11:27The questions raised by opium then, still resonate today.
11:51At the start of the 20th century, the Dutch embarked on the production and trade of a new commodity.
11:58Cocaine.
12:01As exceptional botanists, they cultivated coca plants from Peru, in their colony in Java.
12:10You had all these tea, coffee plantations.
12:13In between them there was also coca leaves produced.
12:19This was a very profitable and totally legal market.
12:23And so the number of plantations increased.
12:27And it appeared to be that the coca leaves from Java were from better quality than from Peru.
12:34So it was a good opportunity to invest in that.
12:42In 1900, the NCF Cocaine Factory was established in the heart of Amsterdam, financed by the Colonial Bank.
12:52It competed with the German manufacturer Mac, a pioneer in cocaine production.
13:00As incredible as it sounds today, at that time substances like morphine, heroin and cocaine were sold over the counter.
13:09They were considered modern miracle drugs.
13:13Their use brought pleasure and euphoria.
13:16Across the Netherlands, but also in Germany, France and the United States.
13:23Little was known about the dangers of addiction.
13:29During World War I, the Netherlands capitalized on its neutrality to supply British, German and French troops.
13:39It sold tons of cocaine and rose to become a market leader.
13:47Most of the drugs that we know at some point in history were legal.
13:53So at a certain point in time, we decided to make those drugs illegal and to start criminalizing them and
13:59tackling them with a war on those substances.
14:05It's at that very moment where we as a society decided these drugs need to be criminalized, need to be
14:13illegal.
14:14That's when the profitability of the model was born.
14:20After the First World War, the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, created a new international framework
14:28aimed at protecting populations.
14:31All member countries were obliged to regulate the drug trade.
14:36Under pressure from the United States and China, Britain, France and the Netherlands, which was the most reluctant, ratified the
14:45Hague Opium Convention.
14:47This marked the beginning of a new era in drug policy.
14:53Over-the-counter sales were banned.
14:55Narcotics now required a prescription.
15:01The policy seemed reasonable.
15:03But it had devastating consequences.
15:09Recreational users suddenly faced stigma and withdrawal symptoms.
15:18Which, of course, pushed many to the black market.
15:22This marked the birth of the drug trade as we know it today.
15:43heroin, cocaine, crack, LSD, MDM, cannabis,
15:52Today, the distinction between hard and soft drugs may seem obvious, but it emerged only
15:59decades ago, in Amsterdam, in the early 1960s.
16:20Jazz, rock and roll, sexual liberation, counterculture from the United States spread across Europe.
16:28In Amsterdam, the protest movements awakened deeply hidden desires.
16:34Following in the footsteps of their seafaring ancestors, hundreds of young Dutch people set
16:39out to explore the world.
16:50From Iran to Afghanistan and India, these new explorers discovered Krishna, opium and heroin.
16:59In Morocco, they experimented with keef and water pipes.
17:04But what would prove most significant was what they learned in Afghanistan, a method for
17:10producing hashish.
17:12In the Berber villages of the Reef Mountains, smiling young Europeans appeared, drawn by
17:17the mythos of its oriental region.
17:20Historically, that has been the place where cannabis was grown.
17:25The people who lived there, the indigenous people from the Reef, have been using the plant for
17:30many purposes, for medicinal purposes, for food purposes, as part of their medical plant uses.
17:41And from the 60s on, that has changed because the demand for hashish was fed by an enormous amount
17:48of Europeans that came to stay and to consume.
17:52And slowly, the market for hashish started to grow, which changed for many people there, who
18:00were mostly very poor peasants, a new option to have an income.
18:15Young Dutch, as well as Spanish, British and French travelers, bought cannabis along the
18:20hippie trail and smuggled it back into Europe, by car, airplane, or cargo ship.
18:35The romantic view is, of course, if we're all hippies, so anti-capitalist.
18:41Well, among the hippies, there were always entrepreneurs.
18:45And you could, let's say, have your smelly Afghan coat and look like a hippie, and travel also
18:54through Afghanistan and back.
18:56But in the meantime, at least be able to finance your trip with a good hotel.
19:05For these aspiring young entrepreneurs, dealing cannabis to finance their lifestyle became
19:10the perfect business model.
19:14Houseboats in Amsterdam became illegal sales points in plain sight of the police.
19:19Such acts of provocation were a sign of the times.
19:23How many plants have you been selling?
19:25We have been selling enough plants to have a harvest, by the month of October,
19:29of about 10,000 kilos of pure marijuana.
19:3210 tons, you mean?
19:3310 tons.
19:33And you have also sold this in Western Europe?
19:37We have sold it all to Holland, Western Europe, Holland, Western Germany, Belgium, and less to France.
19:46Living up to their reputation as merchants, the Dutch soon dominated the European marijuana market.
19:56But this exotic commodity, imported from abroad, was also viewed as a threat that needed to be fought.
20:05It was met with suspicion.
20:07It was associated with rebellion, with agitation, because we didn't know the substance.
20:14And at first, the response of the police was very fierce.
20:20People got arrested.
20:22People got imprisoned for a couple of months because of two joints, for example.
20:28You know, the penalties were very harsh.
20:32It was a very repressive system in the Netherlands.
20:40Despite arrests and harsh sentences, underground dealing continued.
20:45In cafes, bars, and trendy Amsterdam nightclubs, such as the Paradiso and the Fantasio.
20:56And then there was a guy who thought, well, I have a bar.
21:00Why shouldn't I have a dealer who sells only marijuana?
21:03And one guy started doing that.
21:06Got closed down, arrested, a couple of times.
21:12They are committing a crime according to the drug law.
21:17But they are very different from shoplifters, from thieves.
21:22They are quite normal people.
21:26So, what's going on here?
21:30Is criminal law a right instrument to counter it?
21:36And to suppress it in that way?
21:39And the debate started.
21:41And for 10 years, if it's so far, the people are with a joint on the TV.
21:48And then they say, yes, that's how it started.
21:51And they say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,
21:56yes, yes.
21:56Public opinion, the justice system, and police became more relaxed.
22:01Arrests became less frequent, and sentences were reduced.
22:09Then, in 1971, the United States took a hard turn.
22:19America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse.
22:26President Richard Nixon publicly declared a war on drugs.
22:31A conflict that continues to this day.
22:36This marked the beginning of a radical shift in Western drug policy.
22:41Their future slogan?
22:43Just say no.
22:46In the early 1970s, the U.S. was gripped by a heroin crisis, fueled by imports from Europe and Asia.
22:55The U.S. government struck hard.
22:59In 1972, mass arrests dismantled heroin smuggling networks in southern France.
23:06But the war on drugs proved endless.
23:11Criminal networks quickly reorganized.
23:15Heroin, which had previously flooded the U.S., found a new market in Europe.
23:24In Amsterdam, the relative tolerance toward cannabis was speeding up the spread of heroin.
23:31Dealers offered both in bars and nightclubs.
23:40Heroin consumption in Amsterdam boomed within just a few years.
23:45By the late 1970s, the city had become one of Europe's main heroin hubs.
23:51With around 10,000 heroin addicts, in a population of only about 700,000.
23:56The public health crisis forced the Dutch authorities to implement a decisive reform of the 1919 Opium Law.
24:09The idea was, it was a kind of package deal, a stricter policy towards hard drugs, and a more liberal
24:18policy towards cannabis products.
24:22It's what's known as the separation of markets.
24:26You separate the cannabis market from the heroin market.
24:35So, someone who's buying cannabis will never come into contact with heroin.
24:46In 1976, the revision of the Opium Law was passed.
24:52With it came the distinction between hard and soft drugs, as well as harm reduction measures, which have since revolutionized
25:00the treatment of addicts.
25:02This ushered in a new era for cannabis users, the age of the coffee shops.
25:12By the mid-1970s, Amsterdam had earned a reputation as the coolest travel destination in the world.
25:29When we semi-legalized coffee shops, there was initially in Amsterdam, there were five or six.
25:38And ten years later, so in the middle of the 80s, there was something like 175 coffee shops all over
25:46the country.
25:46So, you got what we called drug tourism.
25:54When they created their coffee shop model, they defended the idea that criminalizing and waging a war on drugs is
26:04not always effective.
26:06The Dutch have put a lot of effort at that time to try and tell the rest of Europe and
26:12the world,
26:12we don't think this is a war you can win.
26:17We would like to try something different. Drug use is a matter of public health.
26:23And we would like to treat it that way.
26:25And that's why the Dutch were at the forefront in drug policy innovation in the 70s.
26:40Cannabis consumption might have been decriminalized, but a problem remained.
26:46As a signatory to international drug control treaties, the Netherlands could not import cannabis for its coffee shops
26:53without the risk of being labeled a narco-state.
27:00With entrepreneurial spirit and a pragmatic approach to drug policy, the Dutch therefore developed a questionable system known as the
27:09backdoor.
27:24In Harlem, west of Amsterdam, Heinz Hafrat owns several coffee shops.
27:30He's still grappling with the regulations introduced in 1976.
27:36Welcome. This place is Cannabis Café Maximilian. You can see we have a complete menu here.
27:43Yes, so we have a lot of kinds of marijuana here. And then we have also one drawer full with
27:50joints and smokable hashies, Moroccan hashies.
27:57A coffee shop has a front door and a back door. At the front door, where the customer buys cannabis,
28:03it's all more or less regulated.
28:05You can just go inside and buy a maximum of five grams, and then you smoke it there, or you
28:11go home.
28:12And there's no problem. The back door, however, where the coffee shop owner has to buy their cannabis, well, that's
28:19totally illegal.
28:20That's illegal.
28:23So, every straight-minded person would ask you about, wait a minute, but if you're allowed to sell it in
28:31small amounts, but you're not allowed to buy it in bigger amounts, how does that work?
28:37Oh, yeah. This is, for example, we cut it here. This is Moroccan block hash. That means it's made from
28:44Dutch seeds and grown in Morocco.
28:46Don't ask me how it gets here, but it's here.
28:50It's just like a system. What goes out, you've put in. What goes out, you put in. And this is
28:57the job for the back door. We call the back door, the achter door. Yes.
29:06The back door is the loophole in the system. Through this secret passage, illegal cannabis imports enter the Netherlands.
29:15Police and customs authorities quietly look the other way.
29:26Criminals exploited this loophole, and the back door became an entry point for the illegal drug trade.
29:50By the mid-1980s, the Moroccan reef had become Europe's primary cannabis supplier.
29:57Over a span of 15 years, cultivated areas had increased tenfold. Cannabis was the only profitable crop in this dry,
30:07remote region, one of the poorest in Morocco.
30:12The Berbers of the reef had long been isolated from the rest of the country.
30:20At the beginning of the 20th century, the region witnessed North Africa's first anti-colonial liberation struggle.
30:27After Morocco gained independence in 1956, the people of the reef suffered violent repression under future king Hassan II.
30:35The reef became a land of suffering, which many left behind.
30:40Among the main destination countries were the Netherlands, especially Amsterdam.
30:50When demand for hashish exploded in the 1980s, the first coffee shop supply chains followed the migration routes of the
30:58reef diaspora.
31:01Small quantities were smuggled by Moroccan families returning from holidays in their home villages.
31:10I mean, obviously Moroccan people say, hey, it's kind of legal in the Netherlands, so let's call my brother or
31:18my uncle or my, you know, my old friend from high school and, you know, bring it in.
31:23We can make money here. And it's kind of legal.
31:26It's all right. It's not. Nah.
31:29Well, well, well, well, well, let's do it.
31:39Cannabis still came from Morocco.
31:41But by the mid-1980s, it was no longer hippies, but underworld bosses who controlled distribution in the coffee shops.
31:52A violent and barely concealed criminal underworld which controlled not only the lucrative hashish trade, but also gambling, prostitution and
32:02the heroin market.
32:04In Amsterdam's red light district, a young man from a well-to-do family became the symbol of this criminal
32:10model, Klaas Bronsma.
32:13He laid the foundations of the modern Dutch drug trade.
32:19Bronsma, I would define primarily as an innovation-oriented businessman with a business education, a business family background, and always
32:31looking for new ways.
32:34And profit-oriented, so how can I make more profit?
32:46He had his network, but he did not copy the sloppiness, so to say, of the hippie.
32:54Not too stoned and then forget that you had to deliver, but set up an agency, more or less, a
33:00network that offered good service from the perspective of users and small-scale suppliers.
33:09So good quality, clean, packed, delivered in time, always enough on stock or at least able to provide the market
33:20with a variety in quality for a fair price.
33:24Just like you would do as a capitalist entrepreneur.
33:27You open a store, you must be open during opening hours, and sometimes when you have a night store, you
33:34must be open at night.
33:35Well, that's exactly what Bronsma brought new in.
33:44Klaas Bronsma eliminated middlemen and organized imports from Morocco himself.
33:55To maximize shipments and better conceal his merchandise, he sent hydraulic presses to his producers in the Reef Mountains so
34:03they could shape the hash into soap-sized blocks.
34:08Bronsma established a standard of 250-gram blocks.
34:16He was able to create an organization, people having the different roles, a division of roles over time, with the
34:25importation and the distribution.
34:28That was Bronsma's mentality.
34:30That's what Bronsma did by taking care of the hash production in Morocco.
34:38You offer them equipment, and then you get better quality.
34:46Business boomed.
34:48A seasoned businessman, Bronsma surrounded himself with tax lawyers to invest in real estate and launder money in Amsterdam and
34:57the Bahamas.
35:00Intoxicated by his own wealth, Klaas Bronsma bet big and lost.
35:06In the early 1990s, police seized a shipment of 45 tons of hashish.
35:14Betrayed by his competitors and isolated, the Netherlands' biggest gangster was later shot dead outside a Hilton hotel.
35:21His empire collapsed, but his criminal model would survive him.
35:27There is not a monopoly, and there is not one mafia, and there is a lot that is not mafia
35:34organized.
35:35In criminology, we see the drug market is largely disorganized.
35:40It is not one big organization, but it runs from project to project.
35:46And, of course, there are business leaders that are always behind the projects and the little networks, but you need
35:58to be flexible.
35:59And that is the challenge for criminals, the entrepreneurship.
36:03Probably not so much a drug, but making it into a creative, profit-making action.
36:12We often forget.
36:15It is the fun of a lifestyle of being on the thrill of being a criminal.
36:29With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the drug landscape changed.
36:36As heroin lost its shine and was overtaken by synthetic drugs,
36:41the Netherlands shifted from a transit hub to a production country.
36:48Heroin was this drug of doom and gloom.
36:52And ecstasy was this drug, let's party, let's have fun together.
36:56Capitalism is winning, the communists are going out.
36:59Let's celebrate.
37:00And ecstasy was the drug that captured that moment in time.
37:09But somebody had to make that ecstasy, and that happened in the Netherlands.
37:13Criminals started investing their money from hashish into ecstasy.
37:24So smuggling and trafficking stuff.
37:27That's what we've been good at all along.
37:29So hashish, cannabis, heroin, we'll do it.
37:33And if we wouldn't do it, you know, the Moroccans would do it, or the Turkish would do it.
37:37Because, I mean, this country is an open country.
37:41There is so many different nationalities living here with, you know, different ethnic cultural backgrounds.
37:47So that's what the trade is.
37:51Trade is international, and that's like the core of this country.
38:01So besides becoming a country of traders, we became a drug producing nation.
38:07And that's when the Dutch drug economy flipped.
38:18In 1995, US drug enforcement agents alerted the Dutch police.
38:23The country was synthesizing 20 million ecstasy pills per month, or 70,000 per day.
38:31Approximately three quarters of global production.
38:38Added to this was a brand new botanical innovation.
38:43Naderhash.
38:44Cannabis, grown in the Netherlands.
38:48This hybrid plant was produced indoors, and was three to four times more potent than the original plant.
38:55Naderhash cultivation spread rapidly across the country.
38:58The back door became the front door.
39:01Production now took place at home.
39:06Fears of a narco state spread.
39:08With the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, Amsterdam became the Wall Street of drugs.
39:14In a Europe where the last border checkpoints had disappeared.
39:17The French and Germans started to pressure the Netherlands to take action.
39:36In 1997, the opium law was revised again.
39:42Indoor cultivation was reduced and hundreds of coffee shops were closed.
39:48But drug money had long since seeped into the legal economy.
39:54One event would bring to light the entanglement between organized crime and the Dutch business establishment.
40:13In the 1990s, Monaco was a popular meeting place for international real estate investors, entrepreneurs and high net worth individuals.
40:23At charity galas, members of the underworld mingled with affluent guests and crowned heads.
40:30There was one table in that big room, and it was bought by organized crime.
40:39And that table was next to Dutch royalty, who were also there.
40:45John Miramet, a notorious Amsterdam gangster.
40:50His partner, Sam Klepper, drug trafficker and Hell's Angels member.
40:54And Willem Hauleder, known for the kidnapping of businessman Alfred Heineken.
41:00All three of them were seated at the same table.
41:07How did these people that everybody seems to consider bad and they were violent and they were there?
41:16Where we always thought that the underworld was this, you know, big dark gray area where we couldn't see.
41:24But actually, that was a fictitious image.
41:28Because the underworld was right there with, yeah, if we could name it like that, the upper world, you know,
41:35the highest tier of our country.
41:37And the fact that they were mingling and mixing, it was fascinating.
41:43And, you know, if we talk about money or morality, who wins?
41:48And in the Netherlands, it's always money.
41:51And that's what, you know, that table at that gala, what that says about the Netherlands.
42:02Sam Klepper and John Miramet were murdered in the early 2000s.
42:07Willem Hauleder is serving a life sentence for five counts of murder.
42:12The path was clear for a new generation of criminals.
42:17The greatest talent of the Dutch resides in their capacity to constantly reinvent new markets and find new avenues for
42:25trade.
42:28This created a dangerous dynamic that would soon prove costly for the country and its neighbors.
42:38For this was the poison that would fuel the profits of today's drug trafficking networks.
42:45In the early 2000s, a new era dawned for cocaine.
42:50And a new criminal organization moved into the spotlight.
42:55The infamous Mokro Mafia.
42:59American
42:59Huh, the one, two.
43:01What?
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