He was absent from the "Bunker," the ultra-secure wing of the Amsterdam courthouse, on Tuesday, February 27, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Ridouan Taghi, head of the "Mocro Maffia" in the Netherlands, chose not to attend the end of a trial that captivated the country for almost six years. In all, 142 hearings were conducted since the formal opening of the proceedings in 2018. Once the 46-year-old Moroccan-born mafioso decided to attend, he was transported in a helicopter by an elite police unit to prevent escape attempts.

In addition to Taghi, 16 defendants were charged with seven murders, four attempted murders and a host of other criminal projects linked to the activities of the mafia, a sprawling group specializing in cocaine and synthetic drug trafficking, active in the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, with links to South American cartels. Its boss "sowed violence and terror," the judges concluded.

The three prosecutors had called for life imprisonment for five of Taghi's main associates. In the end, the court imposed this sentence on only two of them, Said Razzouki, extradited from Colombia in 2021, and Mario R. The other defendants received sentences ranging from one year and eight months to 29 years' imprisonment.

Along with Taghi, the central figure in the case was Nabil Bakkali, a former member of the gang who was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. In 2017, he was involved in an execution ordered by the Mocro Maffia in Utrecht. His accomplices chose the wrong target and killed one of his relatives. He then decided to provide information to the police. This was the start of the so-called "Marengo" case and a confession that, combined with the decryption of cell phone messages, would provide a wealth of evidence on the workings of the Mocro Maffia.

In March 2018, Redouan Bakkali was killed less than a week after the courts had revealed his brother's identity. The Mocro Maffia was true to its motto, "Wie praat, die gaat" ("He who speaks will die"). Derk Wiersum, Nabil Bakkali's lawyer, was shot dead outside his home in Amsterdam in September 2019. In July 2021, Peter R. de Vries, a well-known journalist who had become a confidant and advisor to the reformed criminal, was shot dead by two killers in the heart of Amsterdam.

The assassinations were masterminded by Taghi, who was apprehended in December 2019 in Dubai, where he had found refuge but continued to run his organization. He was then incarcerated in a high-security wing in the Netherlands and continued his activities, aided in particular by his nephew Youssef, a lawyer brought to trial and sentenced to five and a half years in prison in 2023. Shortly afterward, another of the mobster's lawyers, Inez Weski, was implicated. It is not yet known whether she will stand trial.

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