Spanish police have arrested the notorious boss of a Dutch-Moroccan cocaine cartel believed to have smuggled billions of euros worth of cocaine from South America through Europe’s largest ports over the past 15 years.
The arrest of Karim Bouyakhrichan, 46, known as ‘Taxi,’ came on charges of laundering tens of millions of euros through the purchase of 172 properties in Spain. He will likely be extradited to the Netherlands to face charges related to years of trafficking cocaine by the metric ton from South America to Europe.
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One of the most wanted criminals in Europe – Interpol has been hunting him for at least five years – Bouyakhrichan’s arrest ends a phase of a civil war between rival factions within the Moroccan Mafia that’s killed countless gangsters across Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Morocco, including Bouyakhrichan’s younger brother Samir, known as Scarface, in a 2014 assassination outside Marbella, Spain.
A loose-knit group of crime families from the Moroccan diaspora centered around the ports of Belgium and the Netherlands, the Moroccan Mafia, also known as the ‘Mocro Maffia’, has risen to prominence in the last decade with a reputation for drug smuggling and for fighting internecine wars between groups for control of routes and ports.
Karim’s brother, Samir, built what European law enforcement believes was the first billion euro drug empire in Europe, using a base in southern Spain to direct shipments of cocaine from Colombia’s Gulf Cartel to northern European ports, while directing a money laundering empire that spanned Belgium, Holland, Dominican Republic, Spain, Morocco and Dubai.
The Bouyakhrichan brothers’ rise coincided with a massive rise in cocaine trafficking into Europe, now one of the world’s single largest markets for the drug.
By flooding the huge ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp with cocaine by the metric ton, Moroccan Mafia groups, along with Balkan and Dutch traffickers, have come to dominate the cocaine trade in Europe. And brutal infighting between groups over control of key routes and suppliers, as well as revenge for lost shipments or theft, set off a series of gang wars across Europe that has killed scores.
“Scarface was the first in Europe to go truly industrial scale and was adept at money laundering, so much of his empire survived his death,” said a European law enforcement analyst, who is not authorized to discuss on-going cases on the record.
Having survived the first round of the Moroccan Mafia war, which began in 2012 in a dispute over possibly stolen cocaine from the port of Antwerp that quickly turned into murderous chaos among Belgium and the Netherlands’ Moroccan organized crime community, Samir built a financial empire ranging from shopping malls to luxury real estate holdings around the world and frequently threw lavish parties in Spain and the Netherlands often attended by celebrities.
When Samir was murdered in 2014, Karim took over the empire. “Karim very adeptly took over his younger brother’s operations – he’d been heavily involved previously – and became a formidable foe,” said the source. “He kept operating and fighting back against other gangsters intent on taking the assets and routes with significant success.”
Present at Samir’s killing was infamous Dutch Moroccan contract killer Naoufal Fassih aka ‘The Belly’ or the “Butcher,” an ally of rival Mocro Maffia drug baron Ridouan Taghi, perhaps the most feared of the Moroccan Mafia bosses, accused or strongly suspected by the Netherlands, in dozens of murders.
Fassih was arrested after fleeing to an Irish safe house in Dublin belonging to the Kinahan crime family, aligned to Fassih and Taghi. Fassih was later jailed for life in the Netherlands over the contract murder of an Iranian dissident living just outside Amsterdam. After his arrest, police decrypted messages from Fassih’s phone where he implied being responsible for Samir’s murder and also promised to kill Karim.
Taghi and Karim Bouyakhrichan continued to trade apparent assassinations over the next decade, including a botched hit by Taghi on a key Bouyakhrichan financier in a cafe in Marrakech that instead killed the son of a Moroccan judge.
The ensuing outrage by Moroccan authorities eventually led to Taghi’s extradition from Dubai to the Netherlands in 2019, where from inside a maximum security prison, he continued to plot murders of Bouyakhrichan’s associates around the world, as well as targeting journalists and lawyers involved in his plethora of legal cases.
In 2022, Dutch Crown Princesses Amalia was forced to withdraw from her first year of university over fears that she would be targeted by Taghi.
“[Karim] and Taghi spent a decade playing Tom and Jerry, trying to murder each other and their allies around the world,” said a Dutch legal source involved in Taghi’s case. “Taghi could never be content with his own empire, he was psychotically compelled to hunt down every last member of Scarface’s gang… Karim’s smarter and lower-profile but he was never going to stop trying to avenge his brother.”
‘I’m sure Taghi, Nofel and Taxi will have plenty to talk about in prison together for the coming decades,” they said.
Bouyakhrichan turned himself in to police in Marbella on Jan. 9, according to Spanish police.
Police seized at least 75,000 euros cash, 10,000 euros in jewellery, 172 properties worth over 50 million euros, and froze bank accounts containing millions.
