'"Sure we're not Mexico. We don't have 14,400 murders. But if you look at the infrastructure, the big money earned by organised crime, the parallel economy. Yes, we have a narco-state."
His words echo in a society that has been convulsed by a murder that went far beyond the bubble of the criminal underworld.
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"..we do have corruption in the docks, violence against lawyers, threats to journalists. It definitely has some of the characteristics of a narco-state lite." (Wouter Laumans)
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The Dutch economy may not be dependent or defined by the drugs industry, but that industry is exerting increasing influence on society.'
- Anna Holligan,
Is the Netherlands becoming a narco-state? December 19, 2019
ContextHow the Italian mafia found a Dutch home, March 17, 2017
Mexico's Cocaine Capital'..across Latin America, governments have capitulated to gangsters..' -
Violence in Latin America