Vega is serving 11 years in the Netherlands, Imperiale was arrested in 2021 in Dubai and extradited to Italy after a months long diplomatic fight that included multiple Italian officials flying the the UAE to negotiate in person. The other members, Dutch trafficker Ridouan Taghi, Ricardo Riquelme Vega aka “Rico the Chilean, and Italian mafia boss Rafeal Imperiale, all spotted alongside Kinahan and Gacanin at the Irish man’s 2017 wedding in Dubai by a confidential informant, have since been jailed or are on trial. Gacanin and Irish mob boss Daniel Kinahan, boxer Tyson Fury’s former promoter, are now the only major members of what the DEA once described as a “super-cartel” in a 2017 confidential report, to remain free.

And so these cocaine bosses remain free.” “But they have moved incredibly slowly despite our requests, then use the excuse that there’s no official agreement or procedure.

“Dubai keeps insisting that Belgium and Holland need to negotiate a proper treaty,” said the Belgian cop. As a result, over the last year the UAE has begun clamping down on mega-rich criminals using Dubai as a bolt-hole and to launder money. In the past UAE and Dubai authorities have been quietly criticised by prosecutors in multiple countries for allowing a slew of major cocaine traffickers from Ireland, the UK, Morocco and the Netherlands to operate openly with little fear of arrest. We are working to find out what exactly is the cause,' spokesman Wim de Bruin told Het Parool.Īlthough Belkhair remains indicted and awaiting his Dubai extradition process while on bail, Gacanin was released without apparent conditions. “We know the stories about the documents being submitted too late. The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (OM) emphatically denied any failure to properly request Gacanin in a statement to the Dutch media. His release infuriated Dutch officials, who denied that the request for extradition was late or lacked complete paperwork, despite multiple news organisations reporting that Dubai had refused the Dutch request to deport him to Holland. “The DEA thinks he’s a top 50 trafficker – we think he might be in the top five European traffickers,” a European police official who cannot be named for security reasons told VICE World News in an interview last year. Gacanin, born in Bosnia but raised in the Netherlands, is alleged to be a high profile figure in the cocaine industry, according to multiple law enforcement sources in the European Union and Bosnia. “The involvement of the DEA in was supposed to get the Emiratis onboard, they’d received assurances the UAE judiciary was taking this seriously.”

“This is frustrating and infuriating for the Dutch and the Americans,” said the Belgian police official of the releases of the two men. He is awaiting extradition proceedings,” Weski told the newspaper Het Parool.īut the situation with Gacanin, whose Dutch attorney has so far refused comment, is far less clear, according to Dutch prosecutors and law enforcement sources, who told VICE World News it appeared the request for his extradition had been rejected out of hand, but were pressing the UAE for more details.Īn international law enforcement official who agreed to speak without attribution confirmed Belkhair had been released on bail but said there has been “little clarity,” as to the “status or location,” of Gacanin. “At the moment, the client has indeed been released after payment of a bail.

Vice lords