Why does Maada Bio prioritize protecting Europe's most wanted drug lord when it does nothing to enhance the safety, strength, or prosperity of Sierra Leone?


Sierra Leoneans woke up this weekend to news from Europol headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands, indicating that a cocaine kingpin, Jos Leijdekkers, is reportedly hiding in Sierra Leone under high-level protection.

Numerous news reports, images, and accounts reveal the role Sierra Leone plays as a transshipment point for large volumes of Latin American cocaine heading to Europe.

Leijdekkers, who is Dutch, was sentenced in absentia to 24 years in prison on June 25 by a Rotterdam court for smuggling over 7 tons of cocaine.

"It is the highest priority of police and prosecutors to get him to the Netherlands to serve his sentence. We are doing everything we can in that regard," stated Wim de Bruin, a Dutch prosecutors' office spokesman.

Videos and photos from a church mass on January 1, 2025, show Leijdekkers, 33, sitting two rows behind Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio, next to a woman believed to be Agnes Bio, the president's relative.

The mass occurred at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in the president's hometown in southern Sierra Leone.

Leijdekkers is listed as one of Europol's most wanted criminals. 

In a September 4 update on the wanted notice for him, Dutch police identified him as "one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking."

They noted that the 7,000 kg of confiscated cocaine shipments related to his 2024 conviction likely represented only a fraction of his operations.

Dutch police indicated that Leijdekkers "has probably been laundering tens of millions of euros and hundreds of kilos of gold earned from the cocaine trade."

Over the past two decades, West Africa has emerged as a significant transit point for large volumes of cocaine smuggled from Latin America to Europe, with several notable seizures of the drug.

Last year, members of a UK-based crime group were imprisoned for attempting to smuggle 1.3 tons of cocaine, valued at 140 million pounds, into the UK from Sierra Leone. 

Does this situation make Sierra Leone safer? Stronger? More prosperous?


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