Court orders drug dealers to hand over €22m in profits

A court in Den Bosch has ordered two convicted producers of the party drug ecstasy to pay the Dutch state €22m which judges calculate they earned from the trade.

The court said the men formed part of a criminal gang which operated in Brabant and Belgium. Officials calculated they had produced and sold over 3,900 kilos of MDMA powder which was used to make 55 million esctasy pills between 2004 and 2006. They were earlier jailed for 11 and nine years.

The court calculated the production cost of a single pill at 15 cents and said they were sold at 57 cents wholesale. After removing wage costs, the total profit was €22m, the court said.

Each man, one aged 50 and the other 47, has been ordered to pay half of the profits to the treasury.

Thank you for donating to DutchNews.nl.

We could not provide the Dutch News service, and keep it free of charge, without the generous support of our readers. Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter, and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day.

Make a donation