Fears have been growing of potential mafia wars between Dutch and German crime networks in western Germany after police connected a number of recent explosions in Cologne to organized crime groups.

An explosion in a cafe on the ground floor of an apartment block in the early hours of Wednesday, September 25, has led German police investigate where there are links among a recent spate of fires and explosions in the city. According to public broadcaster WDR, witnesses saw two people running away as the cafe burned. Two residents of the block were treated for smoke poisoning, though most were reportedly brought to safety.

The incident came after an incendiary device exploded in a fashion store in a popular shopping street a week earlier. "There are obviously open scores in the milieu that have yet to be settled," the head of the Cologne criminal investigation department, Michael Esser, said at a press conference last week.

The spate of violence appears to have started after a botched drug deal resulted in the kidnap and torture of a man and a woman in western Germany in early August. The two people, thought to be part of a German organized crime group, were freed in mid-August following a police operation in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia. The operation resulted in four arrests and the raids of six other properties in the city, during which two more men were arrested. A series of seven bombings in the state have also been linked to attempts by organized crime groups to steal cash from ATMs.

All these crimes are thought to have been carried out by the so-called "Mocro mafia" — an umbrella term adopted by the media in both the Netherlands and Germany for several organized crime groups that originally arose from the Dutch Moroccan community in the 1990s. The Dutch mafia is also just one of many: Europol has counted 821 organized crime networks across Europe, with more than 25,000 members.

Not just Moroccan, and not just Dutch

Though the term has since become popularized, not least by the title of a hit Dutch TV drama (currently in its sixth season and also aired in Germany), most criminologists and police agree the Mocro mafia no longer has a single ethnic identity.

"The so-called Mocro mafia began importing cannabis into the Netherlands in the 1990s and later expanded its business to include the import of cocaine," Dirk Peglow, head of the German Association of Criminal Investigators, told DW. "We are therefore dealing with a group whose structures have been established for decades."

However, they are significantly more prone to violence than the organized crime groups in Germany. Lurid stories have circulated in the media, including tales of torture chambers, severed heads left outside bars and even alleged plans to kidnap the 18-year-old Dutch Crown Princess Amalia. The prominent Dutch criminologist Cyrille Fijnaut has estimated that between 10 and 20 people are murdered by the Mocro mafia every year.

"In all these groups the violence is very high," said Mahmoud Jaraba, a crime researcher at the FAU Research Centre Islam and Law in Europe. "But in this group, the readiness to commit violence is higher." German-based groups, he pointed out, had not yet taken to blowing up ATMs.

But in terms of the structures and the businesses they are involved in, the groups are similar. "The Arab 'clans' in Germany are not that different: The main players come from a certain family, but they're not closed groups," Jaraba told DW. "Without their networks inside and outside Germany and the Netherlands, they would not survive."

High-profile murders aim to silence witnesses, opponents

The Mocro mafia's lack of inhibition became notorious in the Netherlands in 2021 with the killing of Peter R. de Vries, a prominent Dutch journalist who had reported extensively on organized crime in the country and was shot in the head in Amsterdam after appearing on a TV talk show.

That murder was one of three connected to the six-year-long Marengo trial, when several defendants, including gang leader Ridouan Taghi, were accused of multiple murders and attempted murders. In February this year, all 17 defendants were given lengthy prison sentences, including life sentences for Taghi and three others.

As well as de Vries, the brother of crown witness Nabil B. and a prosecuting lawyer were also murdered. In June, six men were also convicted for the murder of de Vries by a Dutch court.

Mocro mafia 'already active in Germany'

Despite these judicial successes, the criminal networks appear to be thriving, and spreading to Germany. "We have seen in North Rhine-Westphalia that the group is already active in Germany and that it displays brutality in its criminal activities that includes the injury or even killing of innocent bystanders," said Peglow.

Though the kidnapping in Cologne showed that feuds between the groups could break out, the organizations usually appear to be in tight cooperation, with the German groups importing cocaine and heroin from their Dutch counterparts. "The relationships and collaboration between the different criminal groups between Germany and the Netherlands have remained in place to this day," said Jaraba.

Researchers don't know exactly when the Mocro mafia began to move into Germany, nor exactly which crimes carried out in Germany might have been on the orders of the Dutch group. Nevertheless, in recent years, the police in both Germany and the Netherlands have said they have been able to gather much more information on international organized crime networks, thanks to analysis of chat messaging apps.

Still, Peglow warned the German government needed to do more to support the police in its efforts to prevent Dutch organized crime from spreading to Germany. "In Germany, we cannot wait until similar structures are established as in Holland," he said. "We have to work very closely with the Dutch police here and prevent incidents like the one that recently happened in North Rhine-Westphalia from becoming normal here."

But without more resources, Jaraba said police had little chance against such structures. "We have extremely few capabilities to fight this phenomenon, because in most cases they come from the Netherlands and they have their escape routes, and people who cooperate with them," he said.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

This article was updated on September 18, and again on September 25, 2024 to reflect recent explosions that are under investigation.

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