Prosecutors demand nine year sentence for Kinahan associate drug lord Mink Kok
Prosecutors in the Netherlands have demanded Kinahan associate and drug lord Mink Kok receive a nine-year prison sentence for his role in smuggling drugs into the country.
It comes as the 63-year-old appealed his conviction at the court of appeal at The Hague on Wednesday.
He was handed down a six-year sentence in June 2023 after he was found guilty for his role in smuggling 400 kilos of cocaine into the Netherlands in a shipment of bananas.
The consignment arrived in 2020 via the port of Antwerp but was somehow mislaid and was eventually found at a supermarket in Remscheid, Germany.
De Telegraaf reported that the court saw sufficient evidence for a conviction based on intercepted messages on the Sky ECC server.
His lawyer, Mark Teurlings, has pleaded for his client to be acquitted.
He claims that there is insufficient evidence to prove that the encrypted text messages were sent by Kok.
He also claimed that the link between Kok and the banana shipment is 'factually and substantively untenable.'
Mink Kok
News in 90 Seconds - 6th June 2025
The hearing will continue next Wednesday.
According to De Telegraaf 'the [encrypted] messages discuss, among other things, amounts of money and order lists.'
'In its ruling, the court refers to raw materials and chemicals and blocks of cocaine and cocaine base, payments and locations and required personnel (cooks).
"He had a leading and coordinating role," the court said.
'In addition, he had a leading role in setting up what appears to be a large-scale drug lab, given the amounts paid and quantities of chemicals purchased.'
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service had previously demanded nine years in prison for Kok but the sentence was lowered as there was insufficient evidence that he also had another batch of drugs in his possession.
The convicted drug trafficker and gun runner, one of the most infamous gangland criminals in Dutch history, had struck up a close working relationship with Christy Kinahan Snr when they were both based in Amsterdam in the 1990s.
It is believed the pair worked together to import millions of euro worth of cocaine and ecstasy into Ireland and the UK.
Kok's son-in-law, named only as Najim Z is also accused by the Public Prosecution Service of being behind the importation from South America of two batches of 750 and 840 kilos of cocaine.
These were intercepted in 2021 in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Najim Z (42) was previously sentenced for those two coke shipments in a separate case.
He was handed down an eight-year prison sentence minus time spent in pre-detention and a detention period in Lebanon.
However, prosecutors have demanded another 12 years in prison against him two weeks ago in the case which is completely separate from that of Kok's.
According to the justice officials, evidence against Kok stems from intercepted Sky ECC messages.
Justice officials say they can prove that there was intensive contact between Sky phones that are attributed to Z and Mink Kok, who were both arrested in Lebanon at the end of March 2022.
There was no Sky telephone found with Kok when he was arrested, but detectives say that the investigation against Kok started after he admitted to a TV programme that he used Sky telephones to communicate with others.
His lawyer previously denied that Kok was the user of the two Sky phones attributed to him.
'In the messages we clearly read that the user of the telephone would be in the Netherlands, even in Amsterdam,' Teurlings has been quoted as saying. 'So the user could never have been Kok because he was in Lebanon at the time.'
Various media have referred to Najim Z based on various judicial or police sources as a 'leader' in Ridouan Taghi's network.
Dutch-Moroccan Taghi is regarded as one of Europe's biggest drugs traffickers and is a key associate of the Kinahan Cartel.
He was one of a number of high-profile criminals who were guests at Daniel Kinahan's wedding in Dubai in 2017.
Along with a number of his associates, Taghi is currently facing multiple charges ranging from assassinations, attempted killings and murder plots.
Lawyers for Z have previously contested that their client should be considered as 'the financial man' in Taghi's drug network, as the Public Prosecutor believes.
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The Journal
a day ago
- The Journal
Irish, Spanish and Dutch/Iranian groups came together to launch dangerous €58m cocaine plan
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Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Bags of cocaine from cargo ship had GPS tags, Special Criminal Court hears
GPS-tagged bags of cocaine, floating into Denmark's beaches, are believed to be linked to a foiled plot by 10 men arrested in West Cork to collect drugs from a ship called the Cool Explorer. A rigid inflatable boat (Rib), carrying three 300 horsepower engines and large quantities of fuel, tried to meet a Panama-flagged ship called the Cool Explorer off the UK coast in March 2024, the State alleges. That ship, a legitimate cargo vessel carrying legitimate cargo, was also believed to have been carrying at least 850kg of cocaine with a street value of between €58m and €59m. That cocaine was later washed into beaches near the Danish town of Sjællands Odde. The foiled alleged drug trafficking operation was intercepted by Irish authorities and 10 men were arrested for conspiracy to import drugs. Seven of the 10 men have now pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court. 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GPS units were attached to the bags of cocaine, which matched the coordinates used by the Cool Explorer, the court heard. Juan Antonio Gallardo arriving at Midleton Courthouse, Co Cork, last year. Picture: Larry Cummins Activity in Cork Three vehicles were observed by gardaí at Tragumna pier acting suspiciously after midnight on March 14. A campervan was observed leaving an Airbnb in the village of Leap and travelling towards Tragumna. The black Land Rover and the Bulgarian-registered blue Scalia articulated truck were also seen approaching the pier. At 5.10am, a black Rib was seen approaching the pier with people on board. The articulated truck had reversed down the pier just before the Rib's arrival. People alighted from three different vehicles, and then people from the rib and the pier began passing multiple hold all bags from the rib to the pier, Insp Young said. A trailer was then winched from the back of the articulated truck, and the Rib was loaded onto it. 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It showed a travel path towards the Cool Explorer and that it changed its course twice to seemingly intercept the Cool Explorer's passage. This had been noted near Lizard Point off the south west coast of the UK, Ms White noted, where the RIB allegedly tried to meet the larger ship. But the boat then made its way back to Tragumna on March 14, the court heard. Sentence hearings, in front of Justice Karen O'Connor, Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin, and Judge Marie Keane, are to continue at 10.30am tomorrow in the Special Criminal Court. But three men plan to contest the charge at trial. The only Irish national arrested as part of the operation, Sean Curran, aged 38, with an address at Carrickyheenan, Aughnacloy, Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, is one of three men waiting for a trial date. He is on bail and is to appear again on Monday at the Special Criminal Court when a trial date may be set. Ali Ghasemi Mazidi, aged 50, with an address in the Netherlands, and Raul Tabares Garcia, aged 48, of Cadiz in Spain are to appear via videolink on Monday for a trial date. These three men's trials are expected to take some six to eight weeks. The 10 men are charged with conspiring with one another to import controlled drugs over €13,000 on dates between February 27 and March 14, 2024, both dates inclusive. The alleged offence is contrary to Section 15 B(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. Gardaí arrested the 10 men in March last year during operations in the villages of Tragumna and Leap near Skibbereen in West Cork, where an off-road vehicle, camper van, articulated truck, and rigid inflatable boat were seized as part of the suspected drug smuggling operation. Read More Spanish man pleads guilty to conspiring to smuggle large quantity of drugs into Ireland
The Journal
2 days ago
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Anti-bugging devices, a stealth speedboat and how a 10 man drugs gang lost €58m worth of cocaine
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They were returning having failed to meet a so-called 'Mothership' off the coast of the Needles Point on the coast of Cornwall – they returned empty handed when they missed their rendezvous. This would lead to the arrest of ten suspects who were subsequently charged with an attempt to take possession of drugs with a value in excess of €13,000 – an offence under Section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act on dates between 27 February and 14 March 2024. The accused who have pleaded guilty are: Dutch national from Rotterdam Kiumaars Ghabiri 52; Spanish nationals Mario Angel Del Rio Sanz, 45 of no fixed address, Spain; and Anuar Rahui Chairi, 42, from Marbella; and Serbian national Aleksander Milic, 46; Pedro Pablo Ojeda Ortega, 36 of Cadiz; and Angel Serran Padilla, 40, of Malaga. They were arrested with the lorry, a black Land Rover and the RHIB in Tragumna or in a Campervan in nearby Leap village – the area is located on the rugged coastline south of the town of Skibbereen. Three other men have pleaded not guilty and they will learn when their trials in the non-jury court will take place in the coming weeks. Young said the scheme began to unravel for the gang when two men, one of whom was Irish, were stopped at a garda checkpoint on the outskirts of the west Cork town of Bandon at the town land of Gully. The Inspector said that the uniform gardaí became suspicious because they were nervous and evasive when questioned at the late night roadside check. They were searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act and this resulted in them also being taken for a more thorough search in Bandon Garda Station. During the search a note was found with several isolated landing locations along the coast, six Air B&Bs and GPS coordinates for a location. The pier where gardaí arrested some of the men as they attempted to recover a speed boat in the early morning. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo Tip from the public Gardaí then received information from a concerned member of the public who had become suspicious of activity at the secluded Tragumna Pier. The early morning caller to the gardaí saw an articulated truck backed down a slipway. It was also close to a camper van. Nearby there was also a black Land Rover and a white Ford transit van. Advertisement When gardaí crossed referenced the locations on the list they learned that they were all within eight kilometres of Tragumna. There enquiries then determined that the vehicles had been spotted at the Celtic Ross Hotel in the village of Rosscarbery. They then checked at the hotel and found one of the gang had checked in using a Rotterdam based credit card. Young said that gardaí then had enough to launch a operation as they believed there was an organised crime group attempting to import a large quantity of drugs. The garda inspector explained that the gang were due to use the RHIB to rendezvous with a 'mothership' – the slang term given to a larger ship bringing drugs across the Atlantic concealed in a legitimate cargo. Cool Explorer In this case the ship, the court heard, was called the Cool Explorer which had left Ecuador in early February, 2024. The ship was a large refrigerator vessel which was bringing a legitimate cargo from South America to St Petersburg in Russia – the drugs were concealed onboard. She was due to arrive in the Russian port on 17 March, 2024. The gardaí believe the gang had missed the drop off near the Cornish Coast, 30 nautical miles from Lands End, England and returned empty handed to west Cork. It is now known that on 14 and 15 March 2024 the Cool Explorer passed off the Danish coast near Jutland. After it passed that location 840 kilos of cocaine, worth an estimated €59m, washed ashore on a beach. A study of a GPS tracker attached to the haul showed that it matched the coordinates of the Cool Explorer. When a search was carried out by gardaí following the arrest of the men the Land Rover was discovered to have false plates and was in fact a vehicle stolen in Glasgow in the weeks before. The heavy goods vehicle was registered to a company in Northern Ireland which also had an operation in Bulgaria. In searches the gardaí found a significant amount of nautical equipment in the Air B&Bs. This included items bought in Portsmouth in South England, in a Decathlon store in Dublin and at a marine store in Cork city. This equipment included dry suits, wet suits and electronic devices. The technology included a satellite phone, more than 30 mobile phones, detectors to find listening or bugging devices and radios. Gary Delaney, a former Naval Service officer now working in consultancy surveyed the RHIB that was seized. The craft was hugely powerful with three 300 horsepower engines and 57 twenty litre drums of fuel. It had painted its white radar dish black, and just one light on the craft – all to make it as undetectable at sea as possible. There was no radar reflector on the craft also and Delaney told gardaí that there was no radio systems onboard. 'It was for the purpose of detecting but not being detected,' Young told the court. GPS devices, both onboard the RHIB and handheld units held by the men in the camper van all confirmed the gang was at Tragumna Pier. Gardaí also found evidence in the GPS system that the criminals had GPS data to help them match up with the track of the Cool Explorer. They also determined that the RHIB had traveled to meet the ship off Cornwall. The hearing is adjourned until tomorrow morning when Inspector Joseph Young continues his evidence. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... 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