In a country known for its liberal drugs policies, organised crime operated for years under the public’s nose – until a series of shocking killings revealed how deep the problem went
Towards the end of 2016, four years before one of the Netherlands’ best-known journalists was fatally shot in the middle of Amsterdam, a 30-year-old man named Nabil B was about to upend his life for ever.
Nabil was one of five children born to Moroccan parents who emigrated to the Netherlands in the 1970s and settled in Utrecht, a medieval city in the centre of the country. While his siblings all went on to become entrepreneurs and successful businesspeople, Nabil struggled academically. After finishing a metalworking degree, he started selling weed and dabbling in smalltime crime. He was a young man who wanted “a lot”, his best friend from that time later told police. “He had big stories, he loved money.”
