Soundproof Torture Chamber Found in the Netherlands #truecrime

DUTCH TORTURE CHAMBER

Imagine waking up strapped to this chair in a soundproof room. A table of torture tools and a masked man beside you. That is exactly what was planned for several people in the Netherlands by 6 men who were a part of the narco trafficking underworld of Europe.

Early in the spring of 2020, European police were cracking into an encrypted communication network used by organized crime to make deals and delivery arrangements for a variety of illegal substances. Encrochat sold phones that had been modified to allow for what they claimed was untraceable communication with an unbreakable encryption starting in 2016 and ending in 2020. They charged a hefty fee for their messaging service, their 10,000 British users paid 1500 lbs per 6 months and it can be assumed their 50,000 other users paid a similar fee.

But of course these claims were going to be proven as exaggerations. Once a team of French police were able to intercept the messages in April of 2020 they found something far more extreme than narcotics. 6 men were discussing their plans to commit a most heinous crime. They discussed how they wanted to kidnap and torture rivals or their family members.

In one message as they discussed their targets, one member of the gang said “there are few now, and I hope I get the chance to torture them.” Another said “if they don’t cooperate, right in the knee.” I think it’s obvious what that means. There were also pictures of what was being referred to as the treatment room of their EBI- the acronym for Dutch secure prisons.

Other messages were quite direct, discussing how they “must have enough belts and tie wraps to tie them.” And one saying outright “we need cutting pliers for fingers and toes.”
The ringleader of the group was a 50 year old infamous tracker known only as Roger P, or by his alias Piet Costa. He was described in court as a CEO of a pharmaceutical company, but whether the justice on the case was referring to his South American powder importation or whether he also ran a legitimate medical company, I can’t be sure. The fact that his identity is still concealed after being found guilty seems very bizarre, as is the vagueness on much of the coverage of this case.

There are also outright inaccuracies throughout some of the reporting such as the claim that the 7 shipping containers had been set up to get rid of a man named Willem Endstra of Dubai. And this makes sense as he was a player in the European underworld acting as a banker. Just one problem, he was assassinated in 2004.

At any rate, what we do know about this case is what police found on June 22 of 2020. They used information gleaned from Encrochat to locate the facility that they had seen in pictured in private messages. The torture chamber was determined to be in a warehouse is Wouwse Plantage, a small village in the Netherlands near the Belgium border.

Inside the rural warehouse, police found seven shipping containers. Each had been sound proofed and rigged with cameras. 6 were designed as holding cells, with toilets and handcuffs attached to the floor and ceiling. The 7th had a dentists chair that had handcuffs for the ankles and straps for the arms.

Along with the horrific torture chamber, police found bags with an assortment of instruments including scalpels, hammers, pliers, torches, and pruning shears. There was also a cement mixing tub that was going to be used for water boarding and a freezer large enough to hold multiple bodies. At a separate location in Rotterdam police raided what had been described as a staging area for the gangs arrest team. At that location they found police uniforms, bullet proof vests, as well as blue lights to impersonate police.

The sweep also arrested 6 men including Piet Costa. Despite the terrifying plans that the men had put into action, the punishments seem light and the concealment of their identities seems like far too favorable treatment from authorities. By 2022, there would be 11 convictions related to the case ranging from 1 to 9 years. Costa himself got an additional sentence that made his 12 years, light for a convicted trafficker arrested in a kidnapping and torture plot.

Other than their sentences and that one has since passed away due to cancer, we know little about the gang or its leader, just that they were truly evil people who had been able to build a small criminal empire. And that soon, they will all be free.

Crime
Gangs
Narcos