MPs have demanded justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin explain how a convicted and violent human trafficker came to be given a few days leave from prison and then vanished.

Saban Baran is currently appealing against a 7.5 year jail sentence for forcing over 100 women into prostitution, together with his brother.

Baran had been allowed home to visit his new baby, born to one of his trafficking victims whom he married from jail in January.

According to the Telegraaf, the Arnhem court gave the go-ahead to the compassionate leave, despite the objections of the public prosecution department, which said he was a flight risk and that it had been tipped off he was making travel plans.

Police say they expect Baran has fled to Turkey and an international arrest warrant has been issued. The Netherlands does not have an extradition treaty with Turkey.

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The operation that focused on shared border areas and transport routes netted 10 kilograms of cocaine, five grams of heroine, 22 grams of hashish and 277 grams of cannabis, it said.

Police officials from the three countries searched cars on busy highways, passengers of international trains and several buildings since Thursday.

Arrests were carried out mainly in the southern Dutch towns of Roosendaal and Maastricht, in Antwerp in northern Belgium and two in Paris on board the Thalys high-speed train en route from Brussels.

The operation was part of a broader project to tackle drug trafficking and drug tourism between the Benelux countries and France, said the police statement.

AFP/Expatica

Convicted human trafficker Saban B has disappeared after being temporarily released from custody because of ‘personal circumstances’, the NRC reports on Wednesday.

“B, who is currently appealing against a 7.5 year jail term handed down last year, was released for a week, the paper says, without giving further details.

He and his brother were found guilty of leading an international human smuggling gang, thought to be responsible for forcing more than 100 women into prostitution in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium.

Some of their victims were tattooed with the brothers’ names. Others were forced to undergo plastic surgery.

The NRC says the justice ministry suspects B, who has Turkish nationality, has left the country.

The 29-year-old man, Gianluca Racco, was arrested Thursday in Aalsmeer in the west of the country.

According to Italy’s ANSA news agency, He is listed as one of Italy’s 100 most wanted fugitives. Citing sources among Italy’s caribinieri, it said he was linked to the Commisso di Siderno mafia family.

He had “probably been hiding for some time in the Netherlands” and was living in the town of Hoofddorp, the prosecution office said in a statement.

Racco had been the subject of an international arrest warrant since 2004, following his sentence in Italy for murder, attempted murder and membership of a mafia crime organisation, prosecutors said.

The Italian courts have submitted a request for his extradition, said Dutch prosecutors.

Racco is the third member of the ‘Ndrangheta, considered to be among the most violent Mafia organisations, to be arrested in the Netherlands in the past nine months.

In March, Dutch police arrested Giovanni Strangio, a key suspect of a deadly 2007 shooting in Germany in which six people were killed, at a town near Amsterdam. He was extradited Italy in May.

His brother-in-law was arrested in November in Amsterdam. He had been sentenced in absentia in Italy to nearly 15 years in prison for drug trafficking.

AFP /Expatica

The couriers brought the drug hidden in double-bottomed suitcases from Argentina to Belgium and the Netherlands via Italy. The arrests took place over a seven month period.

In total, 55 kgs of cocaine were seized with an estimated street value of €20m, ANP said.

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One of the co-defendants of crime boss Willem Holleeder has been given 240 hours community service and a four-month conditional prison sentence for money laundering of €1.3m, report various papers on Friday.

A court in Haarlem ruled on Thursday that Orminda S, described in the Volkskrant as the girlfriend of Holleeder, was given the money by property tycoon Willem Endstra who was later murdered.

Holleeder was sentenced to nine years prison in 2007 for the blackmail of three property tycoons, including Endstra, money laundering, assault and leading a criminal organisation.

The case against Orminda S. was temporarily put on hold when she became seriously sick.

The Hague – Tax authorities seized 38 million illegal cigarettes in a Breda warehouse, announced the ministry of finance Wednesday. It was the largest amount of cigarettes confiscated at one time by the economic and fiscal control service, FIOD-ECD.

The contraband cigarettes have since been destroyed. The cigarettes were most likely headed for the British market, according to a finance ministry press release.

The ministry believed that cigarettes were smuggled from the Breda warehouse to the British Isles in small amounts. Authorities did not say how long this operation may have taken place. Sale of the confiscated cigarettes on the domestic market would bring EUR 6.5 million in tax revenue to the Dutch treasury.

A truck was also seized by authorities in the same operation. The sting was made possible through tight co-operation with Belgian and British authorities. Earlier in July, 22 million cigarettes were confiscated in a warehouse in Zwaag. That brings the total confiscated cigarettes in July to 60 million.

Over 144 million illegal cigarettes, or 7.6 million packs, were seized by Dutch authorities in 2009.

The Netherlands – About 30 percent more fake euro bills have been seized in the first half of 2009 than in the last six months of 2008, announced the Dutch Central Bank (DNB).

Over the first six months of 2009, around 32,000 bills were intercepted. This is a fraction of the estimated 400 million notes circulating in the Netherlands.

The reason for the increase is unclear. The Dutch Central Bank suspects that a gang of forgers has become more active in the Netherlands.

The increase could also be attributed to a growing number of retailers who possess the right equipment to detect counterfeit notes.

Overall, the eurozone saw a 17-percent increase or 413,000 counterfeit notes.

In Netherlands, most forgeries are of 50-euro notes. In other eurozone countries, the 20-euro bill is most popular.

Radio Netherlands / Expatica

Kijkduin – A stroll on the beach at the Dutch seaside resort of Kijkduin led to the discovery of a series of packages of cocaine on Saturday, Dutch public broadcaster NOS reports.

The person who found the first package took it to the authorities, sparking a shoreline search by police.

Similar packages were found at four other locations along the North Sea coastline of the Dutch province of South Holland, including one weighing almost 2.5 kilograms which was washed ashore on the beach at Scheveningen.

Other packets were found on the beaches at Westland and Wassenaar.

Equipment used to cut cocaine was also found in the packets. The Hague police believe the packets may have become detached from the underside of a boat.

This method of concealment – below the waterline - is often used by smugglers to avoid detection by customs officials.

Radio Netherlands / Expatica

All four victims of the mystery gunmen were men.

Police were alerted to a shooting at a house early on Sunday evening. They found one injured man outside the front door, the two dead and other injured man in the building.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing several men of African appearance running away from the scene and getting into a car which drove off at top speed.

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