gateway
The Betrayal – Giving Life to Gateway
“After a botched killing in Amsterdam one night in 2017, Nabil B knows he’s a dead man. He’s a close associate of Ridouan Taghi, one of Europe’s biggest cocaine kingpins. The question is who’s going to kill him first.”
How to Sneak Metric Tons of Cocaine Into Europe: The Art of “Transshipments”
A Freelancing Montenegrin Ex-Boxer and Smuggling on the High Seas After US authorities discovered nearly 20 metric tons of cocaine aboard several ships in the port of Philadelphia, prosecutors made an astounding assertion. All this cocaine, the largest amount seized in US history, had actually been destined for Rotterdam, Europe’
A troubling spate of bombings in Antwerp
Nightly bombings last week appear to have been replaced by nightly shootings in Antwerp as criminal gangs fighting to control cocaine imports at the port appear to have escalated tensions that have been simmering all summer. On Monday evening, a man was shot to death in the Antwerp neighborhood of
The Lebanese Connection
Last March, Dutch authorities asked Lebanese police to raid the Beirut homes of Robert Mink Kok, a notorious drug trafficker suspected of bringing several huge shipments of cocaine through the port of Rotterdam in 2019. When the cops in Beirut stormed the properties, they expected to find some guns, typical
What Happens When the Cartel Decides You're Dirty
If you work for a drug cartel, it can be surprisingly hard to get fired for utter incompetence. On the other hand, the easiest way to die a horrible death at the hands of your colleagues is for them to become convinced that you’ve been talking to the cops.
When Europe Took the Cocaine Crown from the U.S.
After dethroning the United States last year as the world’s single-largest cocaine market, Europe appears set to hang onto the title for the foreseeable future: A few months into 2022, the continent has broken the all-time record for single seizures, with the busy ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp playing
Welcome to Gateway
One night in Beirut, about 10 years ago, I walked into a French bistro to catch up with a longtime source at a European intelligence service. Before that, he’d spent years as an undercover cop working on organized crime, a portfolio that included drug investigations. As the night wore
