DAKAR: Seated in a pew in Sierra Leone, one of Europe’s most wanted cocaine traffickers is seen in a video at a New Year’s Day mass last year in the presence of President Julius Maada Bio.

Afterwards, the country’s first lady had posted the video on Facebook, where people eventually recognized the figure as “Bolle Jos,” the fugitive Dutch drug lord.

The convicted prolific smuggler, whose real name is Joseph Johannes Leijdekkers, is considered by Europol a most-wanted criminal and “key player” in global cocaine trafficking.

Dutch police have offered a two-million-euro ($2.2-million) reward for information on him.

AFP gathered information from law enforcement, local testimonies and court documents which show the 35-year-old trafficker operating in Sierra Leone with apparent support from the highest echelons of power.

- Long rap sheet -

Dutch authorities lost track of Leijdekkers, whose nickname means “Chubby Jos” in Dutch, for several years and said in 2023 they believed he could be in Turkiye.

After the New Year’s 2025 video, Sierra Leone police announced they had launched a manhunt for a man named Omar Sheriff but authorities soon went quiet on the matter.

AFP was not able to independently verify the video or others mentioned in this article.

Leijdekkers — who also uses the alias Omar Sheriff, according to Europol — is thought to have arrived in the west African country from as early as 2023, according to media reports and a local source.

His rap sheet is long.

Overall, more than a hundred years of prison sentences have been handed down to Leijdekkers in the Netherlands and Belgium.

He was, for example, sentenced in absentia two years ago to 24 years in prison in the Netherlands for drug trafficking, armed robbery and ordering an assassination.

Among other allegations, he is suspected of involvement in the 2019 disappearance of Naima Jillal, a drug trafficker nicknamed “Madame Coke,” who was linked to the Dutch-Moroccan Mocro Maffia involved in drug trafficking and production.

Europol has said she was almost certainly tortured and most likely dead.

- Benevolent figure -

Leijdekkers’s partner is Agnes Bio — the daughter of the president — with whom he has a child, according to several sources close to the president’s family.

While the topic is taboo among authorities, several videos have surfaced showing him next to the president, his daughter and other high-ranking officials.

In a video which also emerged in early 2025, he is seen handing a birthday gift to the country’s immigration chief Alusine Kanneh, who laughs.

Also present at the festivities was Andrew Jaiah Kaikai, director of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

Kanneh was subsequently dismissed, though no official reason was given, while Kaikai remained in his post until August 2026 when he was replaced in a presidential decree without a reason being given.

Sierra Leone authorities did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.

While Leijdekkers’s exact whereabouts remain shrouded in mystery, Dutch authorities are now convinced he is in Sierra Leone.

In 2023, the 2 Seasons hotel resort on the outskirts of the capital was closed to the public when a wealthy Turkish investor, going by the name of Omar Sheriff, took over the beach property, a local community leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

“We began to notice changes with the launch of extensive renovation work and the deployment of armed security personnel,” the community leader said.

Speedboats docked at the waterfront day and night, they added.

The new occupant distributed rice, oil and sugar to the local population.

But residents were no longer permitted to approach the hotel and phones and visitors were strictly prohibited.

Locals later recognized the Turkish investor as Leijdekkers after the 2025 New Year’s Eve video.

- Mysterious presence -

On New Year’s Eve 2023, Leijdekkers celebrated at the Scarlett nightclub in Freetown, where he got into an altercation with a Lebanese national based in the country, Hussein Fawaz, according to media reports.

One of his bodyguards shot Fawaz in the leg, the reports said, an incident that made news headlines and precipitated a police investigation, although without mention of the drug trafficker’s name.

Leijdekkers travels in convoys escorted by armed men in uniform and foreigners in civilian clothes, according to individuals who have met him and were interviewed by AFP.

His former partner, Hanane, accuses him of having absconded with their 10-year-old son, Liam, to Sierra Leone, which she told the Dutch press had caused her “indescribable suffering.”

Sierra Leone’s parliamentary opposition leader, Abdul Kargbo, in an open letter to the president in May, mentioned the trafficker’s presence in the country in recent months, which he said was a cause for immense embarrassment and serious international concern.

Journalists looking into Leijdekkers’s whereabouts have been subject to threats, investigative outlet Follow the Money (FTM) reported in January.

Sierra Leonean reporters now in exile have testified about the pressures they faced, including searches, intimidation and threats.

- Tensions with Netherlands -

Dutch authorities have long requested his extradition.

However, the country lacks an extradition treaty with Sierra Leone, which has never complied.

Relations between the two nations have since become strained.

In September, Sierra Leone Chief Minister David Moinina Sengeh accused Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel of “neo-colonialism” after the latter threatened to cut European Union (EU) aid to the country.

In early October, van Weel announced the termination of EU aid.

The EU confirmed to AFP that a disbursement of 18 million euros ($19.9 million) originally planned for 2026 was under review and none was planned for the time being, but did not explicitly link the cut to Leijdekkers.

Sierra Leone’s Justice Minister Alpha Sesay described the move as “blackmail.”

- Drug empire -

Leijdekkers’s network has flooded the European market so much that it has helped drive down the price of cocaine, a Dutch source close to the investigation told AFP.

Sierra Leone, which is situated along Africa’s Atlantic coast, serves as an ideal transit point for drugs between South America where they are produced and Europe where they are consumed.

Shipments from west Africa attract less scrutiny from European customs authorities and the region has become a major hub in the global cocaine trade.

“Drug traffickers use unsuspecting boats to enter our country from North America but the bulk of the cocaine is shipped to Europe in containers” laden with palm oil and cassava flour, a source at the Freetown ports told AFP, adding that some of the drugs were also resold locally.

According to the source, the “drug dealers operate with high political connections or protection.”

Nonetheless, in 2024 the president declared the fight against drugs a national emergency amid devastation caused not by cocaine but kush, a cheap, synthetic drug that emerged in the country a few years ago.

- ‘Operating in plain sight’ -

On May 1, in international waters off the Canary Islands, the Spanish Civil Guard intercepted a ship coming from Freetown.

On board the Arconian, Spanish law enforcement seized a record 30 tons of cocaine, as well as firearms.

A total of 17 people, including five Dutch individuals, were arrested.

Investigators believe the drugs were to be transshipped onto small boats for distribution to Europe.

The operation bears the hallmarks of Leijdekkers’s network, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) and media citing Dutch police sources.

He has “repeatedly used this modus operandi to traffic cocaine from west Africa to Europe since at least 2024,” GI-TOC said in a report on the seizure.

“Thirty tons says you’re operating in plain sight,” a UN agent told The Guardian in an article published in October.

The investigation by the newspaper revealed the scale of cocaine in Leijdekkers’s network and its association with at least 14 murders, according to sources cited in the article.

The media spotlight on Leijdekkers could ultimately harm him, one regional expert, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

“If his reputation becomes undermined because there is this heightened scrutiny on him and so more of his shipments are seized, then it could damage his position in the business,” the expert said.

But the source emphasized that “removing one node” will not bring down the larger cocaine trade.