Picture this: a billionaire Dutch drug lord, slipped from the grip of Spanish justice due to a jumble of red tape. Sound like a movie plot? Well, it’s not. It’s reality in Spain right now, as they grapple with the embarrassing accidental release of Karim Bouyakhrichan, suspected bigwig of the notorious Mocro Maffia.
Bouyakhrichan, known to some as “Taxi”, was nabbed in Marbella in January, wrapping up a five-year investigation into money laundering. But, a blunder over extradition papers to the Netherlands set him loose, and now he’s vanished. Despite this gaffe, Spanish brass remain optimistic they’ll reel him back in.
Now, this isn’t just any criminal. Bouyakhrichan is allegedly part of the Mocro Maffia, a cartel responsible for piping billions of euros worth of cocaine from South America into the EU over a decade and a half. A truly international operation, they’re known for using Amsterdam and Rotterdam’s vast ports to distribute their wares, while laundering the dirty money throughout Europe and as far as the Middle East and Morocco.
The Netherlands’ media have even linked these guys to threats levelled at their future queen, Princess Amalia. It got so bad that she had to uproot to Spain for a year, driven from her homeland by the dark forces of organised crime.
Bouyakhrichan’s arrest was quite the high-profile event; he and five others found themselves in hot water over allegations of turning 172 Spanish properties into a €50m money laundering operation. With Interpol on his trail for half a decade, Bouyakhrichan was one of Europe’s most wanted criminals. His older bro, Samir, a co-founder of a Mocro Maffia branch, met his end in a hail of bullets back in 2014. Karim supposedly stepped up as the new head honcho after this.
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His arrest earlier this year had a ripple effect, calming a volatile power struggle within the criminal underbelly, which had claimed several lives.
Well, he was locked up… until a Dutch extradition request and subsequent confusion led to Bouyakhrichan walking out of Malaga prison, €50,000 bail bond lighter. The specifics of the error are as yet unclear, with Spanish Justice Minister Félix Bolaños remaining tight-lipped.
Interestingly, the Spanish court knew that this kingpin could bolt but still assumed a surrendering of his passport and fortnightly check-ins would be sufficient. Well, seems they were wrong, as he pulled his disappearing act on April 1.
Vincent Veenman from the Dutch public prosecutor’s office in The Hague is in the dark about why Bouyakhrichan was let go but maintains that collaboration with Spanish justice is “generally good”. We can only hope that this error will be rectified sooner than later for the sake of justice.