Police and justice believe that the Mexican Pavel N. (40) was the boss of various crystal meth labs in our country in recent years. The infamous drug boat in the village harbor of Moerdijk may also have been set up by him. “I’m the biggest ice producer in Europe,” he bragged about himself. Pavel N. alias ‘Pablo Icecobar’ was sentenced to sixteen years in prison on Wednesday.
The Mexican is on trial with a group of other suspects in the court in Den Bosch. On Wednesday, the prosecutor read the indictment. That took about five hours. Sentences of between twelve months and twelve years were demanded against a group of other suspects from Boskoop, Wassenaar and The Hague, among others.
Pavel N., as his real name, called himself ‘Pablo Icecobar’ on the messaging service EncroChat, as a nod to the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. ‘Ice’ is another name for crystal meth, his specialty.
Patron
According to the public prosecutor, this Pavel N. was the Mexican ‘quartermaster’ and leader of the production of crystal meth in the Netherlands. “He has the know-how. It is not the intention that Dutch people become aware of the process. He is also a broker and regulator. And the boss: patron, the boss indicated by a suspect.”
Police and justice believe that the Mexican has been active in our country since 2017. In 2017, he left his DNA on a cigarette butt in a Frisian drug lab, as an unknown person. The first real trace that he was making drugs came on Friday afternoon, May 10, 2019. Then a meth lab was discovered on board an inland vessel in Moerdijk. The skipper from Breda and three Mexicans were put in handcuffs.
Rare
The ‘Narcobarco’ (Drug Boat in Spanish) was world news. Crystal meth was still rare in our country at the time. Also unique because it involved the ‘Mexican method’: reuse of raw materials and waste.
When the police examined the suspects’ cell phones, it became clear that someone was controlling them: Pavel or Pablo. But the trail came to a dead end. The breakthrough came a year later. Police specialists cracked the French telephone service EncroChat. Among all those millions of chats was someone who called himself Pablo Ice-cobar. Someone who was into drugs. ‘i am Pavel and i can do labs whereever i want’, said one of the messages. ‘I have 3 labs in Holland. I’m the biggest ice producer in Europe.’
Drug labs
Pavel’s messages led to drug labs: in Hauwert (North Holland), Willemsoord (Overijssel), Arnhem and Achter-Drempt (Gelderland). He also chatted about the boat in Moerdijk as ‘my lab’ and: ‘The guys were my partners in Moerdijk’.
Who this Pavel was remained unclear for a while. Until an observation team spotted his brother Jorge in Schijndel, ducking into the backseat of the car of a known drug criminal. Jorge lived with his brother Pavel. They bought cooking pots together at Ikea in Delft for cooking meth. Pavel has already been convicted once in Texas for meth production.
Tracks
Dozens of people behind the drug labs have now been convicted. There are criss-cross connections to other networks, such as a group of boiler builders in Tilburg. According to the Public Prosecution Service, traces have also been found to labs in Eemnes, Herwijnen and Herstal in Belgium.
The men on the Moerdijk drug boat have also served their prison sentences. The three ‘Moerdijk’ Mexicans have been deported from the country. Not everyone has been traced. For example, Pavel’s brother, Jorge, is on the run, just like another suspect in this network.
Also read: Drug boat Moerdijk: four years in prison for Mexicans who made crystal meth
2023-09-20 16:47:32
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