title: Banat

text: According to "Gesta Hungarorum" chronicle, a local ruler known as Glad ruled over Banat and his army was formed by Vlachs, Bulgarians, and Cumans Ahtum was another early-11th-century ruler in the territory now known as Banat. His primary source is the Long Life of Saint Gerard, a 14th-century hagiography. Chanadinus, Ahtum's former commander-in-chief, defeated and killed Ahtum, occupying his realm.


title: Banat

text: Banat was administered by the First Bulgarian Empire from the 9th to the 11th century, but that control gradually migrated to the Kingdom of Hungary which administered it from the 11th century up until 1552, when the region of Temesvár (today Timișoara) was captured by the Ottoman Empire.


title: Banat

text: The area of the Timiș river was not the land of the Hungarian royal tribe. When nomadic Hungarians came to Transylvania there was no direct Bulgarian political rule there. In the eastern part of the Carpathian basin the Byzantine rite became more influential after Ajtony's () conversion to Christianity. This was halted with the establishment of the Kingdom of Hungary. István I reasserted dominance over the last local leader, Ajtony. He was a semi-independent ruler of Banat and an Orthodox Christian who constructed a Byzantine monastery at Morisena. His vassal Csanád defeated him by the will of King Stephen I of Hungary. The territory of the modern Banat did not form a separate territorial unit in medieval Kingdom of Hungary, it was an integral part of it. The territory was shared by Krassó, Keve, Temes, Csanád, Arad and Torontál Counties.


title: Banat

text: In 1233, under the Kingdom of Hungary administration, the Banate of Severin, a military frontier area was formed, including some eastern parts of the modern Banat. In the 14th century, the region became of priority concern to the Kingdom, as the southern border of Banat was the most important defensive line against Ottoman expansion from the Southeast.


title: Banat

text: The Ottoman Empire took over the area and incorporated Banat in 1552. It was absorbed as an Ottoman eyalet (province) named the Eyalet of Temeşvar. The Banat region was mainly populated by Rascians (Serbs) in the west, and Vlachs (Romanians) in the east. Thus, in some historical sources, the region of Banat was referred to as "Rascia", while in others as "Wallachia". Numerous Ottoman Muslims settled in the area, living mostly in the cities and associated with trade and administration.


title: Banat

text: Not all of Banat fell immediately under Turkish rule. Eastern regions around Lugoj and Caransebeș came under the rule of Princes of Transylvania. In that area, a new banate was formed, known as the Banate of Lugoj and Caransebeș.


title: Banat

text: In the spring of 1594, shortly after the beginning of the Austro-Turkish War (1593-1606), local Serbian Christians, in the Eyalet of Temeşvar, started an Uprising against Turkish rule. The local Romanians also participated in this uprising. At first, rebels were successful. They took the city of Vršac and various other towns in Banat and started negotiations with Prince of Transylvania. One of the leaders of the uprising was local Serbian Orthodox Bishop Theodore.


title: Banat

text: In the middle of the 17th century, the territory of Banate of Lugoj and Caransebeș finally fell under Turkish rule and was incorporated into Eyalet of Temeşvar.


title: Banat

text: During Austro-Turkish War (1683-1699), local Serbian uprisings broke out in various parts of Eyalet of Temeşvar. Austrian armies and Serbian militia tried to drive out sultans army from the province, but Turks succeeded in holding the fort of Temesvár. In 1689, Serbian patriarch Arsenije III sided with Austrians. His jurisdiction (including the province) was officially recognized by the charters of emperor Leopold I in 1690, 1691 and 1695. Under the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699), northern parts of the Eyalet of Temeşvar were incorporated into the Habsburg monarchy, but the territory of Banat remained under Turkish rule.


title: Banat

text: At the beginning of the next Austro-Turkish War (1716–1718), Prince Eugene of Savoy took the Banat region from the Turks. After the Treaty of Passarowitz (1718), the region became a province of the Habsburg Monarchy. It was not incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary. Special provincial administration was established, centered in Temesvár.


title: Banat

text: In 1738, over 50 Romanian villages from Serbia and Banat were destroyed and dwellers murdered by Austrians and Serb militia during a revolt of Romanians.


title: Banat

text: Also governor of the province was not given the title of "ban", the region became known as the "Banate of Temes" or Banat of Temeswar. It remained a separate province within the Habsburg monarchy and under military administration until 1751, when Empress Maria Theresa of Austria reorganized the province, dividing it between military and civil administration. The Banat of Temeswar province was abolished in 1778, when civilian part of the region was incorporated into the Kingdom of Hungary and divided into counties. The southern part of the Banat region remained within the Military Frontier (Banat Krajina) until the Frontier was abolished in 1871.


title: Banat

text: During the Ottoman rule, parts of Banat had a low population density due to years of warfare, and some local residents also lost their lives during Habsburg-Ottoman wars and Prince Eugene of Savoy's conquest. Much of the area had reverted to nearly uninhabited marsh, heath and forest. Count Claudius Mercy (1666–1734), who was appointed governor of the Banat of Temeswar in 1720, took numerous measures for the regeneration of Banat. He recruited German artisans and especially farmers from Bavaria and other southern areas as colonists, allowing them privileges such as keeping their language and religion in their settlements. Farmers brought their families and belongings on rafts down the Danube River, and were encouraged to restore farming in the area. They cleared the marshes near the Danube and Tisa rivers, helped build roads and canals, and re-established agriculture. Trade was also encouraged.


title: Banat

text: Maria Theresa also took a direct interest in Banat; she colonized the region with large numbers of German farmers, who were admired for their agricultural skills. She encouraged the exploitation of the mineral wealth of the country, and generally developed the measures that were introduced by Count Mercy. German settlers arrived from Swabia, Alsace and Bavaria, as did German-speaking colonists from Austria. Many settlements in the eastern Banat were developed by Germans and had ethnic-German majorities. The ethnic Germans in the Banat region became known as the Danube Swabians, or "Donauschwaben". After years of separation from their original German provinces, their language was markedly different, preserving historic characteristics.


title: Banat

text: Similarly, a minority coming from French-speaking or linguistically mixed communes in Lorraine maintained the French language for several generations, and developed a specific ethnic identity, later known as Banat French, "Français du Banat".


title: Banat

text: In 1779, the Banat region was incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary, and the three counties of Torontal, Temes and Karasch were created. In 1848, after the May Assembly, the western Banat became part of the Serbian Vojvodina, a Serbian autonomous region within the Habsburg Monarchy. During the Revolutions of 1848–1849, Banat was respectively held by Serbian and Hungarian troops.


title: Banat

text: After the Revolution of 1848–1849, Banat (together with Syrmia and Bačka) was designated as a separate Austrian crownland known as the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat. In 1860 this province was abolished and most of its territory was incorporated into the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary.


title: Banat

text: The Serbian Banat (Western Banat) was part of Serbian Vojvodina (1848–1849) and part of the Voivodeship of Serbia and Temes Banat (1849–1860). After 1860, later Serbian Banat was part of Torontal and Temes counties of Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary. The center of Torontal county was Großbetschkerek (Hungarian: Nagybecskerek, Serbian: Veliki Bečkerek), the current Zrenjanin.


title: Banat

text: In 1867, after the Austro-Hungarian compromise the territory returned again to Hungarian administration. After 1871, the former Military Frontier, located in southern parts of Banat, came under civil administration and was incorporated into Banat's counties. Krassó and Szörény were united into Krassó-Szörény in 1881.


title: Banat

text: In 1918, the Banat Republic was proclaimed in Timișoara in October, and the government of Hungary recognized its independence. However, it was short-lived. After just two weeks, Serbian troops invaded the region and took control. From November 1918 to March 1919, western and central parts of Banat were governed by Serbian administration from Novi Sad, as part of the Banat, Bačka and Baranja province of the Kingdom of Serbia and newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (which was later renamed as Yugoslavia).


title: Banat

text: In the wake of the Declaration of Union of Transylvania with Romania on December 1, 1918, and the Declaration of Unification of Banat, Bačka and Baranja with Serbia on November 25, 1918, most of Banat was (on July 26, 1919) divided between Romania (Krassó-Szörény completely, two-thirds of Temes, and a small part of Torontál) and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (most of Torontál, and one-third of Temes). A small area near Szeged was assigned to the newly independent Hungary. These borders were confirmed by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and the 1920 Treaty of Trianon.


title: Banat

text: At the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, the delegates of the Romanian and some German communities voted for union with Romania during the Great National Assembly of Alba Iulia; the delegates of the Serbian, Bunjevac and other Slavic and non-Slavic communities (including some Germans) voted for union with Serbia during the Great People's Assembly of Serbs, Bunjevci and other Slavs in Banat, Bačka and Baranja; while the Hungarian minority remained loyal to the government in Budapest. Besides these declarations, no other plebiscite was held.


title: Banat

text: In 1938, the counties of Timiș-Torontal, Caraș, Severin, Arad and Hunedoara were joined to form ținutul Timiș, which roughly encompassed the area typically called Banat in Romania.


title: Banat

text: On 6 September 1950, the province was replaced by the Timișoara Region (formed by the present-day counties of Timiș and Caraș-Severin). In 1956, the southern half of the existing Arad Region was incorporated to the Timișoara Region. In December 1960, the Timișoara Region was renamed the Banat Region.


title: Banat

text: On 17 February 1968, a new territorial division was made and today's Timiș, Caraș-Severin and Arad counties were formed.


title: Banat

text: Since 1998, Romania has been divided into eight development regions, acting as divisions that coordinate and implement regional development. The Vest development region is composed of four counties: Arad, Timiș, Hunedoara and Caraș-Severin; thus it has almost same borders as the Timiș Province ("ținutul Timiș") of 1938. The Vest development region is also a part of the Danube-Criș-Mureș-Tisa Euroregion.


title: Banat

text: Ethnic minorities in the region include Hungarians (5.6% of the population), Serbs, Croats (Krashovans), Bulgarians, Ukrainians, and others. The area has been inhabited by Serbs since medieval times, with the largest numbers of inhabitants in 18th century. The main areas of Serb settlements were along the Mureș in Sânnicolau Mare, Cena, Sânpetru Mare and Recaș. Croats are settled in Carașova and the neighbouring villages of Anina and Reșița. Albanians who arrived in 1740 were assimilated by the majority Carașoveni. At the beginning of the 19th century, the villages of Ceneiul


title: Banat

text: The region was claimed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes between 1918 and 1922 (as the province of Banat, Bačka and Baranja between 1918 and 1919) and from 1922 to 1929 it was divided between Belgrade oblast and Podunavlje oblast. In 1929, most of the region was incorporated into the Danube Banovina (Danubian Banat), a province of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, while the city of Pančevo was incorporated into self-governed Belgrade district.


title: Banat

text: During World War II, the Axis Powers occupied this area and partitioned it. Nazi Germany had been intent on expanding into eastern Europe to incorporate what it called the "Volksdeutsche," people of ethnic German descent. They established the political entity known as Banat in 1941. It included only the western part of the historical Banat region, which was formerly part of Yugoslavia. It was formally under the control of the Serbian puppet Government of National Salvation in Belgrade led by Milan Nedić. It theoretically had limited jurisdiction over all of the territory under German Military Administration in Serbia, but in practice the local minority of ethnic Germans (Danube Swabians or Shwoveh) held the political power within Banat. The regional civilian commissioner was Josef Lapp. The head of the ethnic German group was Sepp Janko. Following the ousting of Axis forces in 1944, this German-ruled region was dissolved. As a consequence, much of the local Germans fled from the region together with defeated German army in 1944. Most of its territory was included in the Vojvodina, one of the two autonomous provinces of Serbia within the new SFR Yugoslavia. Following WWII, most ethnic Germans were expelled from Banat and eastern Europe. Those Germans who remained in the country were sent to prison camps run by the new communist authorities. After prison camps were dissolved (in 1948), most of the remaining German population left Serbia because of economic reasons. Many went to Germany; others emigrated to western Europe and the United States.


title: Banat

text: Since 1944–1945, the Serbian Banat (together with Bačka and Syrmia), has been part of the Serbian Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, first as part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and then as part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia and Montenegro. Since 2006, it has been part of an independent Serbia.


title: Banat

text: North Banat okrug (which also includes municipalities of "Ada, Senta and Kanjiža", which are situated in the region of Bačka),


title: Banat

text: Serbian Banat also includes the area known as Pančevački Rit, which belongs to the Belgrade municipality of Palilula.


title: Banat

text: The Hungarian Banat consists of a small northern part of the region, which is part of the Csongrád-Csanád County of Hungary and is made up of 7 villages and the district of Szeged, Újszeged. The Hungarian part of Banat used to be the northernmost region of the Torontál County in the Kingdom of Hungary. In addition to the Hungarian population, there is a small minority of Serbs (e.g. in Deszk, Szőreg).


title: Banat

text: In 1660–1666, Serbs lived in western (flat) part of Banat, while Romanians lived in the eastern (mountainous) part.


title: Banat

text: Ethnic Hungarians were almost totally absent from the region in the first half of the 18th century. They were considered politically unreliable, but in 1730 some Catholic Hungarians were allowed to settle down in Banat.


title: Banat

text: According to 1774 data, the population of the Banat of Temeswar numbered 375,740 people and was composed of:


title: Banat

text: According to the 1910 census, the population of the Banat region (counties of Torontál, Temes and Krassó-Szörény) numbered 1,582,133 people, including: (*)


title: Banat

text: (*) Note: according to the 1910 census, the population of Romanian Banat included 52.6% Romanians, 25.6% Germans, 12.2% Hungarians, and 4.9% Serbs, while population of Serbian Banat included 40.53% Serbs, 22.14% Germans, 19.18% Hungarians, 12.94% Romanians, and 2.86% Slovaks. In Serbia the majority of the Banat Swabian or Shwovish population fled from the region together with the defeated German army in the Fall of 1944, as one can see in the population Table below, where the German-speaking Shwovish population dropped from about 120,000 in 1931 to about 17,000 in 1948. Those who remained in the country were sent to prison camps run by the new communist authorities, where many died from hunger, disease and cold, but many also escaped. After the prison camps were dissolved (in 1948), most of the remaining German population left Serbia and Yugoslavia because of economic reasons. Their flight was mainly a consequence of wartime events and Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, but partly also a consequence of the economic situation in the post-war years. In Romania ethnic Germans mostly emigrated after 1989 for economic reasons.


title: Banat

text: The historical population of the Romanian Banat (the Timiș, and Caraș-Severin, counties) was as following:


title: Banat

text: The traditional heraldic symbol of Banat is a lion, which is nowadays present in both the coat of arms of Romania and the coat of arms of Vojvodina. It is assumed that the Banat lion has its origin in the Cuman lion.


title: Banat

text: The current coat of arms of the Romanian Banat was designed in 1921, after the union of the Banat with the Kingdom of Romania, by the heraldist by combining some elements from the coats of arms of Temes and Krassó counties from 1779 to represent the "Romanian Banat of Severin". It consists of a red shield in which is represented a golden lion rampant emerging from a golden bridge with two arched openings, built of carved stone, over an azure river. According to its author, "the lion is the old (Cuman) element, the bridge is the new element, Trajan's Bridge over the Danube". The coat of arms from 1921 was modified in 1992 by adding a sabre in the right paw, recalling the backsword of Pál Kinizsi, count of Temes.


title: Banat

text: Serbs use the seal of the Velika Kikinda District of 1774 to represent Banat. It also features a golden lion rampant with a sabre in the right paw and a severed Turkish head in the left one.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Tune in for Love (), is a 2019 South Korean romance film directed by Jung Ji-woo and starring Kim Go-eun and Jung Hae-in.


title: Tune in for Love

text: The setting is in the 1990s and reflects on the IMF Crisis of 1997. Mi-soo, a hardworking part-time worker at a bakery, indirectly exchanges stories with Hyun-woo on a radio program. Both fall in love and continue to cross paths, but timing is not in their favor.


title: Tune in for Love

text: In 1994, Hyun-woo comes into the bakery Mi-soo works at before opening time and asks her if they sell anything that contains soy. Mi-soo suggests soy milk, but realizes they don't have soy milk and refers him to the grocery store down the street. As Hyun-woo is leaving, Mi-soo and another employee, Eun-ja, Mi-soo’s close friend, watch as he walks away, assuming he is newly released from prison. Later, Hyun-woo returns and applies as a part-timer for the bakery. He gets the job and he and Mi-soo begin to work together. Hyun-woo, Mi-soo, and Eun-ja spend a lot of time together and opening up to each other. During winter, Hyun-woo and Mi-soo put out a Christmas tree in front of the bakery. The two share a sentimental moment outside as Mi-soo tells him that her mother always wished to share happiness with the rest of the community.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Around Christmas, construction for new apartment buildings begins in their neighborhood and old friends of Hyun-woo find him and stop by. Their presence disrupts the quiet peace of the bakery and eventually, Eun-ja asks them to leave. Hyun-woo is about to leave with them and asks Eun-ja if he can get his pay in advance. Mi-soo and Eun-ja wonder if he'll ever come back. Later that night, Hyun-woo and his friends are eating at a soju bar and have a solemn moment to remember their friend, Jyeong-hyeop who passed away. A group of strangers passes by them and one remarks it seems like a funeral. One of Hyun-woo's friends gets angry and picks a fight with the stranger, ending up with all of them in a fight. Mi-soo waits in the bakery for Hyun-woo to return, but he never does.


title: Tune in for Love

text: In 1997, the bakery has closed. Mi-soo meets with a college counselor and confides she didn't get a job at any of the big companies. He tells her she has two options: a temporary gig working for a popular radio show or a stable job at newsletter editor company. She decides the latter. She visits Eun-ja, who is now working at a noodle shop, and shares the good news with her. Meanwhile, Hyun-woo is working as a furniture mover. After his shift, his coworker asks if Hyun-woo can escort his elderly mother home and Hyun-woo obliges. As he is escorting the old woman home, Mi-soo stops by the old bakery. Hyun-woo notices Mi-soo and tells her to wait for him there. She agrees and Hyun-woo returns, both engaging in small talk. The two reconnect and Mi-soo asks if he wants to visit Eun-ja's noodle shop the next day. Hyun-woo tells her about his military service which begins tomorrow and offers to walk her home. When they arrive at Mi-soo's apartment, the two spend time together in her apartment and eventually, Hyun-woo stays the night. Mi-soo admits on the day he left, she waited for him to return and Hyun-woo tells her that he wanted to return, but his probation was revoked due to the bar fight.


title: Tune in for Love

text: In the morning, Mi-soo wakes up before him and signs him up for an email account. She gives it to him as he departs and tells him to keep in contact with her this way. The two share a brief and awkward kiss before heading off in their separate direction. Later that night, Mi-soo realizes that she forgot to give him the password to the email, which was her code to the apartment.


title: Tune in for Love

text: In 2000, the bakery has been turned into a real estate agency office and the new apartment complexes have been built. Mi-soo is miserable at her newsletter editing job, where the machinery is loud and she frequently works overtime. She continued sending emails to Hyun-woo, even though he can't open his email. Hyun-woo was just released from military service and tries to find Mi-soo, only to find out that she has moved. He decides to move into her old apartment and as he is signing the lease, he sees her old apartment code and finally gets into his email account. Mi-soo is overjoyed to find she has a way to contact him and asks for his number, so she can call him the next day. The next day, she calls him and schedules a meet up. However, an angry mob storms Hyun-woo's job, breaking his phone. Mi-soo tries to call him many times, but is unable to. Later, Mi-soo emails him to say that it was a good thing that they didn't meet, since she isn't in the mood to catch up and act happy. She hates herself and admits that the only that has made her happy these days was Hyun-woo figuring out the password. She tells him to get in touch with her when something good happens.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Five years later, Mi-soo is now happy at her new book publishing job. Her boss takes her to a book shop, where she finds out that the new book she published is a top seller and they rejoice together. Meanwhile, Hyun-woo now works at a video editing startup that is moving in above where she works. The two reconnect yet again and Hyun-woo brings her to his apartment. Surprised, Mi-soo looks around before finally telling him that she is happy to see him. They start dating and Mi-soo takes three days off work to spend time with Hyun-woo. One night, Hyun-woo asks if she's still scared of her, since she used to be when they were younger. She shakes her head and the two kiss and passionately make love. Later, they visit Eun-ja, who has gotten married and has a step-daughter that causes her trouble. As Eun-ja and Hyun-woo are reconnecting, a student calls for Eun-ja, telling her her daughter is about to get beaten up. Eun-ja and Hyun-woo go, finding Mi-soo apprehending Eun-ja's daughter for smoking cigarettes. Mi-soo asks why she lets her daughter treat her badly and cause so much trouble. Eun-ja calms her down and serves Mi-soo and Hyun-woo food. As they leave Eun-ja, Mi-soo comments that Eun-ja could probably tell that they were dating.


title: Tune in for Love

text: The two continue to spend time together. At his work, Hyun-woo has a picture of Mi-soo that he took. Mi-soo also recommends Hyun-woo as a video editor for Yoo Yeol's new visual radio show. Meanwhile, Mi-soo's boss tells her that he will get her to fall for him. One day, Hyun-woo goes to return comic books and his old friends find him. It turns out that it's the tenth anniversary of Jyeong-hyeop's death, for which Hyeon-o was blamed and imprisoned for. They were playing around on the rooftop as children and Jyeong-hyeop fell down, so Hyun-woo was suspected of pushing him off. The group drives to Jyeong-hyeop's old house, where they deliver money to his sister. His sister tells them to leave and Hyeon-o tries to tell her that he is innocent, but she ignores him. Hyun-woo leaves his phone in his friend's car when he returns home and Mi-soo calls, only to hear that one of his friends has it. She meets with Hyun-woo's old friend to pick up the phone and learns about Hyun-woo's past.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Without Hyun-woo's knowledge, Mi-soo goes to visit Jyeong-hyeop's house, but his family has moved. Later that night, Mi-soo tells Hyun-woo what she learned and asks if everything will be okay now. Hyun-woo is devastated, as he prayed that Mi-soo would never find out, so he could try to live a normal, peaceful life without his past haunting him. Mi-soo tells him that he never told her and that she was tired of seeing him so anxious. She begs him not to leave, but he goes off. He finds his friend that told her about Jyeong-hyeop. The two beat each other up, and Hyun-woo visits Eun-ja's noodle shop. He returns home to find Mi-soo gone.


title: Tune in for Love

text: The next day Hyun-woo returns to his old workplace because he left his picture of Mi-soo there, but it has been bought by Mi-soo's boss. He meets her boss, who tells him that he has the picture of Mi-soo at his apartment and that Hyun-woo and Mi-soo aren't happy together, so Mi-soo deserves someone better. Hyun-woo admits his dislike for her boss and asks if he will find Mi-soo if he follows her boss's car. This makes her boss laugh and he drives off with Hyun-woo chasing after him. Mi-soo gets picked up by her boss and sees Hyun-woo running after the car. She asks her boss to stop and she leaves the car to speak with Hyun-woo. Hyun-woo confesses that he loves her, but Mi-soo only tells him to stop running. Heartbroken, Hyun-woo breaks down into tears as Mi-soo drives away.


title: Tune in for Love

text: A few days later, Mi-soo visits Eun-ja. Eun-ja makes her doughnuts, but tells her that it doesn't taste the same anymore. Mi-soo replies that everything in the world has changed, except the taste of her doughnuts. They reminisce and Eun-ja tells her about the night Hyun-woo visited. She says that Hyun-woo thanked Eun-ja for trusting him, even though his grandmother, aunt, and teacher never believed him.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Hyun-woo starts his job as the video editor for Yoo Yeol's show (a popular radio show) and Yoo Yeol asks if he has anyone he wants to give a shout out to. Mi-soo tunes in and hears that Hyun-woo gave a shout out to her on the show and goes over to the studio. She finds Hyun-woo packing up and smiles at seeing him. Hyun-woo notices her and takes a picture of her as she smiles at him.


title: Tune in for Love

text: Tune in for Love set a box office record for a romance film upon its opening day of August 28, 2019, garnering 173,562 admissions and surpassing the record previously held by A Werewolf Boy.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Robert Thomas Velline (April 30, 1943 – October 24, 2016), known professionally as Bobby Vee, was an American singer who was a teen idol in the early 1960s and also appeared in films. According to "Billboard" magazine, he had thirty-eight Hot 100 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20. He had six gold singles in his career.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee was born in Fargo, North Dakota, to Sydney Ronald Velline (a chef, pianist and fiddle player) and Saima Cecelia Tapanila, in a family of Norwegian and Finnish heritage.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee and Karen Bergen married December 28, 1963. In the early 1980s, Vee moved his family from Los Angeles to near St. Cloud, Minnesota, where he and Karen organized annual fundraising concerts to provide music and arts facilities for local children. They had four children, including sons Jeffrey, Thomas, and Robert, who performed with Vee in his later career, and daughter Jennifer. Karen died of kidney failure on August 3, 2015.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Bobby and his sons opened and operated Rockhouse Productions in an old bank building in St. Joseph, Minnesota, which continues in operation. The Vees helped organize and performed for a number of years in the annual July 3 St. Joseph "Joetown Rocks" festival drawing many thousands of fans and area residents.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee continued performing live until 2011 when diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In 2011, friends and family contributed to his final new recordings which were eventually released as "The Adobe Sessions" on February 3, 2014. On April 29, 2012, Vee announced publicly that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and consequently would withdraw from the music business. He had been in memory care (long-term care to meet the needs of those with Alzheimer's disease, dementia or other types of memory problems) for 13 months in a long-term care facility in Rogers, Minnesota, just outside of Minneapolis, and eventually received hospice care in the weeks prior to his death. On October 24, 2016, Vee died from complications of the disease at the age of 73.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee's career began in the midst of tragedy. On February 3, 1959, "The Day the Music Died", three of the four headline acts in the lineup of the traveling Winter Dance Party—Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper—were killed in the crash of a V-tailed 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza airplane, along with the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. (Dion DiMucci, the fourth headliner, had opted not to travel on the plane.) It crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, en route to the next show on the tour itinerary, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Vee, then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys (including his older brother Bill) calling themselves the Shadows, volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at the Moorhead engagement. Their performance there was a success, and started Vee's career as a popular singer.


title: Bobby Vee

text: In 1963, Vee released a tribute album on Liberty Records called "I Remember Buddy Holly". In the liner notes, he recalled Holly's influence on him and the events surrounding Holly's death, describing how he had looked forward to attending the concert, how the local radio station put out a call for local talent to fill after the disaster, and how Vee's recently organized group, modeled on Holly's style, had to make up a name (the Shadows) on the spot.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee became a star, and he performed regularly at Winter Dance Party memorial concerts in Clear Lake. His three sons, all musicians, performed with him there.


title: Bobby Vee

text: His first single, "Suzie Baby", was written by Vee with a nod to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue" and was recorded in 1959 for the Minneapolis-based Soma label. The record was a hit in Minnesota and drew enough national attention to be purchased by Liberty Records, which signed Vee later that year.[6]


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee's follow-up single, a cover of Adam Faith's UK number-one "What Do You Want?", charted in the lower reaches of the "Billboard" pop chart in early 1960. His fourth release, a revival of the Clovers' doo-wop ballad "Devil or Angel" (U.S. number six), brought him into the big time with U.S. buyers. His next single, "Rubber Ball" (1961, U.S. number six, Australia number one), made him an international star. He has cited as influences, producer Snuff Garrett and his personal manager, Arnold Mills. Vee's recording of "Take Good Care of My Baby" went to number one on "Billboard" magazine's U.S. pop chart in the summer of 1961 and number three in the UK Singles Chart.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Known primarily as a performer of so-called "Brill Building pop" material, Vee went on to record a string of international hits in the 1960s, including "More Than I Can Say" (1961, UK number 4), "Run to Him" (1961, US number 2; UK number 6), "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes" (1963, US number 3; UK number 3) and "Come Back When You Grow Up" (1967, US number 3).


title: Bobby Vee

text: On the recording of "Come Back When You Grow Up", Bobby Vee and The Strangers are credited. However, that was merely the record label giving a name to the studio musicians working that day. Bobby's original band, The Shadows, backed him on the road; upon learning of the UK band The Shadows who backed Cliff Richard, the band changed its name to The Strangers. In 1961 Vee recorded a version of the song "Lollipop", originally by Ronald & Ruby, which also became a success. Vee had a total of ten hit singles in the UK, ending with "Bobby Tomorrow" (UK number 21) in 1963.


title: Bobby Vee

text: In 1963, American Bandstand signed Vee to headline Dick Clark's Caravan of Stars national U.S. tour, scheduled to perform its 15th show on the night of November 22, 1963, at the Memorial Auditorium in Dallas, Texas. The Friday evening event was cancelled after U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated that afternoon while touring Dallas in an open car caravan.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Vee was also a pioneer in the music video genre, appearing in several musical films and in the Scopitone series of early film-and-music jukebox recordings.


title: Bobby Vee

text: Early in Vee's career, a musician calling himself Elston Gunnn briefly toured with the band. This was Robert Allen Zimmerman, who later went on to fame as Bob Dylan. Dylan's mentions Vee and provides complimentary details about their friendship, both professional and personal.


title: Bobby Vee

text: In a concert at Midway Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 10, 2013, Dylan said he had been on the stage with many stars, but that none of them were as meaningful as Vee. He said Vee was in the audience and then played Vee's hit "Suzie Baby" with emotion. Dylan said (in a video recording of the concert):


title: Bobby Vee

text: Dylan also recalled that Vee "had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell." Vee remembered that the musician he knew as Gunnn (Bob Dylan) "played pretty good in the key of C."


title: Bobby Vee

text: He is mentioned in the film "No Direction Home" regarding his brief musical association with Bob Dylan and Dylan's suggestion that he was "Bobby Vee" after Vee's regional hit.


title: Bobby Vee

text: "The Very Best of Bobby Vee", released by EMI/UK on May 12, 2008, charted in the UK top five. On January 17, 2011, EMI/UK released "Rarities", a double-CD package with 61 tracks, many of which were previously unreleased. Others included were alternate takes and first-time stereo releases as well as tracks from the album "Bobby Vee Live on Tour", without the "canned" audience.


title: Bobby Vee

text: An active live performer into 2011, Vee was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, at which time he completed his scheduled tour obligations and recorded his final CD, released three years later. In 2014 Vee was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Moroccan mafia (, , ) is a term that describes various criminal organisations that are mainly made up of people from Moroccan descent. These organisations are specialised in trafficking large quantities of cocaine and synthetic drugs through Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium, from where it is distributed to the rest of the European continent, thus being one of the most dominant participants in the European drug trade.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In broader terms of Moroccan organized crime, this also includes northern Moroccan hash kingpins and southern Moroccan traffickers who play a key-role in the African drug trade, as well as in human trafficking, arms trafficking and the trafficking of contraband such as cigarettes and alcohol, although they are seen as a separate entity from the "Mocro Maffia" who are mostly active in the northern part of Morocco and Europe.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Moroccan criminal networks in Europe are mainly active since the 1990s, and consist mostly of Belgian and Dutch citizens with a Moroccan immigrant background. These criminal networks have privileged relationships with Colombian and Mexican cartels, and they often import drugs into Europe through the harbours of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Algeciras.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Moroccan mafia does not, however, include Moroccan Jewish crime families such as the Abergil crime family as well as the Abutbul and Domrani clans, who are rather considered to be a part of the Israeli mafia. That said, Moroccan-Israeli mafia clans are known for having collaborated closely together with the "Mocro Maffia" in the Netherlands and Belgium, especially in the worldwide distribution of synthetic drugs such as MDMA. This is mostly due to the fact that the Netherlands is the largest producer of MDMA and amphetamines in the world.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Moroccan mafia started to gain a lot of attention in Dutch and Belgian media outlets when a large shipment of cocaine was stolen by the Turtle clan in the Port of Antwerp, in 2012. This eventually led to a gang war amongst multiple criminal organisations which the Dutch and Belgian media outlets described as the infamous "Mocro-War".


title: Moroccan mafia

text: From this point on, many people from Dutch- and Belgian-Moroccan descent were killed in various shootouts across Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Morocco and Suriname. Later on, Ridouan Taghi became known as the most prominent figure within the Moroccan mafia, who had a large share in the European cocaine trade, and he was also responsible for a lot of gangland killings across Europe. He is currently jailed in a maximum security prison in the Netherlands awaiting his trial. His right-hand man Saïd Razzouki is currently jailed in Bogotá, Colombia, awaiting his extradition to the Netherlands.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In Antwerp, the term "Borgerokko-Maffia" is often used due to the large impact of the illegal economy in the district of Borgerhout. The trade of this illegal economy has its origins in the Moroccan street gangs of Antwerp and Amsterdam, which is described in the 2014 published book "Borgerokko Maffia" by Raf Sauviller, and also in the book "Mocro Maffia" by author and criminologist Martijn Schrijver.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Moroccan mafia has appeared in most of the large Belgian and Dutch cities including Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Almere. In the mid-2010s, criminal organisations were also established in southern Spain (mainly around the Costa del Sol region), but also in the rest of Europe, South America and more recently in the United Arab Emirates. According to the Dutch investigator Pieter Tops, the Moroccan mafia gains a revenue of around 20 billion euros a year in the Netherlands alone.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In September 2019, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was trying to convince the Dutch government to launch an attack on drug traffickers. He also pleaded for a black list of the most dangerous criminal organisations that were operating on Dutch soil. This statement came right after the beheading of Nabil Amzieb, the attacks on the headquarters of Dutch news outlets "De Telegraaf" and "Panorama", and the murders on journalist Martin Kok and lawyer Derk Wiersum, on which the latter was considered to be an attack on the Dutch legal system and the Dutch state.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: On 6 July 2021, the Netherlands once again was shocked to its core when the most prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was shot with 5 bullets, right after he left the studio of RTL Boulevard in Amsterdam, where he had appeared as a guest on the show. De Vries died more than a week later on 15 July 2021, as a result of the shooting. The Dutch police arrested three suspects on the evening of the shooting, one of whom was released the next day as he was no longer a suspect. It is still unclear who gave the order of the shooting, but according to the Dutch authorities all tracks lead to the organisation of Taghi. de Vries acted as a close confidant to Nabil B., a crown witness in the Marengo trial against the organisation of Taghi, whose brother, alongside his lawyer Derk Wiersum were assassinated on the orders of Taghi's organisation.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Moroccans (mainly from the Rif region) have migrated in large waves to the Benelux, who were invited to these countries as guest workers. This dense and rather late emigration in the 1960s and 1970s eventually never stopped, and many of the invited guest workers decided to build a new life in the Benelux instead. Most of these Moroccan immigrants came from the Rif region, which is one of the poorest regions in all of Morocco. The Rif region was, and still is a very rural and little urbanised area, which had very few schools for an excessive time, whether in Arabic or French. This Mediterranean peasant and mountain society is quite comparable to other Mediterranean regions like Corsica, Sicily, Sardinia, Calabria and the Aurès. It is characterised by very strong community relationships, a spirit of silence (omertà) and self-governance. This mountainous region has always stayed somewhat uncontrollable. After decolonization, more than tens of thousands of Riffians have lost their jobs in the vineyards and farms of Morocco and Algeria. Afterward, this process continued, as if from the 1970s and onwards, many of these migrated Riffians have lost their jobs in the European mines and steel industry as well. Since then this workforce has converted on a massive scale into different ways of commerce and businesses, both legal and illegal, with the illegal side, in particular, being the smuggling of cannabis. The earned money was reinvested in cafes, small businesses and real estate in Morocco. The ones who gained some wealth, reinvested into the economy around the Costa del Sol region in southern Spain. The Riffian diaspora has thus spread its economic system throughout Europe. During the 1960s, Belgium and the Netherlands, unlike other countries in Western Europe, had no North African colonial past, welcomed massive Moroccan immigration from northern Morocco to work in the mines, iron and steel industry in Wallonia. Afterward, this process continued in Flanders and the Netherlands, in the midst of an economic boom. The drug trade eventually followed these communities in exile, from Morocco to the Netherlands, through Spain, France, and Belgium.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: During the 1980s, De Pijp and Bos en Lommer districts located in Amsterdam, housed the most Moroccan immigrants. During this period, many Dutch-Moroccans saw this as an opportunity to export hashish from the Ketama mountains in Morocco to the Netherlands, often aboard their old vehicles such as Mercedes S-Class cars. It was around this time in the mid-1980s that the modern mafia structures started to evolve, before intensifying over time. These trafficking businesses eventually represented a 10 to 12 billion-dollar revenue in 40 years. The traffickers were used to crossing borders, carrying weapons, and they were known in Morocco to be very violent. The Moroccan state has abandoned and neglected the Rif region for many years by refusing to invest in the infrastructure, which has prompted most Moroccans from cities like Al Hoceïma and Nador to devote themselves entirely to the production of Hashish. In the 1980s, cocaine gained a lot of popularity. These were also the years when Dutch Penose crime syndicates were inspiring the Moroccan community to enter the hard drug business, which would make them eventually more money than hashish.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: During the 1990s, many drug kingpins in South America preferred to operate their smuggling businesses through West-African countries like Ghana and Senegal, due to the absence of customs controls in the most important ports of these countries. Over time, South American cartels have created trafficking routes through North Africa for export to Europe. Morocco has an important strategic geographical placement and also a large diaspora in the most important countries of Europe, which is what eventually has set them apart from other countries on the African continent. While in Morocco the Rif mountains and port cities like Tangier or Tétouan were often counted on for the production and trafficking of drugs, in Europe, Antwerp became the European trafficking hub alongside Spain. With Antwerp and its Port, the whole of Belgium also became a geographic hub for drug export. Importation of goods and drug trafficking became inseparable over time, and these activities compensated for the layoffs that affected miners, steelworkers and textile workers on a massive scale. In this context, the old manners, habits, and the traditional codes of conduct, honor, justice, and distrust in authority were transplanted in the districts of Brussels, Amsterdam and Antwerp, where these communities were able to grow significantly, notably with the establishment of a friendly relationship with the Dutch Penose, at that time amongst some of the largest criminal organizations in Europe. Whether justified or not, the Belgian and Dutch authorities characterized these communities by their "social isolation" and by a "more aggressively tribal culture" which distinguished them from other immigrant communities.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: During the 1990s, the crime rates would increase in certain districts of Amsterdam. As a result of this, a large number of native Dutch people decided to leave these neighborhoods to live somewhere else in the suburbs or the countryside, where it was usually a lot more calmer and serene. In 1995, a petition was set up in certain neighborhoods to accommodate Moroccan immigrants outside of the city without success. Certain places like the Diamantbuurt in the district of De Pijp very rapidly gained a negative reputation due to the increase of criminality.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Rif region has been the most neglected area in all of Morocco for an excessive time, which resulted in extreme marginalisation and poverty. Its traditional clan society has a culture of patronage and armed self-defence, combined with a sense of honour and heightened pride. As a result of this, individuals suspected of criminal activity could integrate very easily into the socio-economical aspect of this society. The functioning structures of the Moroccan mafia is through a family or clan. The clan structures are organised around members of the same family, or individuals from a common region. This also applies to individuals who were born on European soil. The drug trade in the mountainous Rif area is in the hands of a few Moroccan families who operate like Corsican, Calabrian or Sicilian Mafia organisations. They avoid public appearance and they live by a code of "zwijgplicht". In other words, the omertà, or a code of honour and silence. These families live extremely reticent and communicate in a Berber language that Western Police forces do not master. Each organisation has a mega-structured hierarchy, including a right-hand man, warrant officers, logisticians, informants, lookouts, hitmen, corrupted police officers and lawyers.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Around 80% of all the hashish that is consumed in Europe originates in the mountainous Rif region of northern Morocco. This rebellious region is considered to be a lawless area that is very difficult to access and deemed to be dangerous. For centuries, this area was a cultivating hub for hashish, which later on became the largest exporter of cannabis in the world. A strong taboo evolves around the topic of cannabis culture in Morocco, due to the fear of being killed by Moroccan families who practice the omertà to avoid being sentenced by the Moroccan state. This criminal society is accustomed to money laundering, weapon trafficking and finding hideouts from Gibraltar to Amsterdam, through major metropolitan areas like Paris and Brussels. Later on, it also became clear that this was a contributing factor in nesting terrorist cells. Police forces in Europe, and more particularly that of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean were aware of this but did not act on it to buy social peace with immigrant youths.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Criminal networks often launder their money in Morocco, southern Spain or Dubai. This illegal money often circulates through the Hawala system, a parallel banking system of Arab origin that is often used by organised crime syndicates. Interpol also mentioned that the Moroccan mafia has a major involvement in the synthetic drug market, particularly in the manufacturing of these drugs, as well as playing an important role in the trafficking of cannabis (hashish) from the Rif region in Morocco. In Wouter Laumans's book on the Moroccan mafia, he cites that 80% of northern Morocco is built with illegal money that mostly originates from money laundering.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Communication between networks of the Moroccan mafia was mostly exercised by the use of Blackberry smartphone messaging equipped with PGP technology. On 19 April 2016, the Canadian authorities intervened a hosting company with the aim of decrypting the Dutch telecommunication servers of Ennetcom. The servers contained millions of messages that were sent through Ennetcom. The cybercrime investigators of the Netherlands Forensic Institute finally managed to decrypt the messages in Canada. When the messages were deciphered, the investigators found out that the messages were all written in Tarifit, a language that was unknown to them. The names of the criminals were also replaced by nicknames. Between 2016 and 2018, the Dutch police forces investigated the nicknames to identify commanders as well as contract killers. Following the dismantling of the Ennetcom network, several criminal organizations have converted to the use of other encrypted communication services.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Some criminals, including Saïd Razzouki, have been avoiding to communicate through electronic devices. Because of this, Razzouki could operate unknowingly for over 8 years before being arrested in Medellín by the DEA and FBI. Commanders or crime bosses are rarely found in Europe. They often stay hidden under the radar in places like Morocco, Latin-America, Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Thailand.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider used primarily by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. Other than major criminal activities such as large scale drug trafficking, the investigation exposed what would be a torture chamber alongside self made prisons, which were all built in shipping containers. It also exposed an excessive number of Dutch police uniforms owned by a criminal organisation. All of these were owned by a known rival of Ridouan Taghi, who allegedly used the torture chamber on members of Ridouan Taghi's organisation.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Sky Global was also a communications network and service provider based in Vancouver, Canada. Its most notable products were the secure messaging application Sky ECC and crypto-phones. A significant number of users were part of international crime organisations involved in drug trafficking, and the company management was also suspected of collusion. In a series of raids against criminal organisations in several countries in early 2021, a part of Sky's infrastructure in western Europe was dismantled, and the US Department of Justice issued an arrest warrant against the company's CEO Jean-François Eap.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The decryption of Sky ECC exposed in particular the inner workings of the Turtle clan and the El Ballouti clan. 27 tonnes of cocaine were also intercepted which were believed to be largely trafficked by these organisations, as well as corrupted police officers and lawyers who were involved.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: South American cartels and Moroccan crime syndicates have maintained good relationships, and created trafficking networks to transport cargoes that involved thousands of containers through Moroccan ports since the 1980s. Due to the large waves of Moroccan immigration to the Netherlands and Belgium, beginning Moroccan traffickers were able to infiltrate the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, and criminal networks were eventually able to grow their influences over these port cities. In the 2000s, drug traffickers in these port-cities have changed the use of their hashish and cannabis routes for the use of cocaine trafficking to gain larger profits. A large part of these traffickers came from the north of Morocco, which explains their ease in expressing themselves in the Spanish language. With the arrival of new communication technologies, it was easier for these organizations to create and maintain new contacts, and networks were eventually established over three continents.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Cocaine is delivered daily in containers to the Port of Antwerp, before it is distributed throughout Europe by Dutch and Belgian-Moroccan drug traffickers. The Port of Antwerp, which is considered to be the largest port for cocaine import in Europe, is dominated and controlled by 5 Moroccan drug clans who export these large quantities of cocaine to the European mainland. With an area of 12,068 hectares (or 24,000 football fields), gangs preferred to use this port as a trafficking destination for drugs due to the lawlessness within the port. What also attracted the gangs, is the fact that the Port of Antwerp is considered to be an "open port". This is not the case for the Port of Rotterdam, which is closed off daily and under high surveillance. Within a single cargo ship, it is possible to place up to 15,000 containers. Customs officers are provided with scanners that are only able to scan a single container in 5 minutes, which makes full control over the entire cargo pretty much impossible. This makes drug trafficking easier for gangs operating in the port. There are also cases of corruption amongst customs officers who work for criminal gangs. The amount of corruption amongst customs officers has more than doubled between 2015 and 2017. In October 2017, Tim Deelen, who worked as a customs officer at the Port of Antwerp, was arrested by the Belgian police. He worked for a criminal organisation based in Antwerp. In September 2017, the federal police in Antwerp was sounding the alarm on the increase of cocaine trafficking in the port city, generating a parallel economy and a level of corruption that was never seen before. Customs officers and police officers very often received a large sum of money (up to 50,000 euros for an hour of work) by criminal organisations in Antwerp and the Netherlands, to send drugs through the customs controls without being intercepted.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Dutch Ministry of Justice denied that 95% of all the cocaine that arrived at the Port of Antwerp was transported to the Netherlands, and they also denied the relationship of these drugs to the Dutch networks of the Moroccan mafia. However, writer and criminologist Teun Voeten published a book in 2020 called "Drugs", where contradictory claims were made in anonymous interviews by Belgian inmates, and by people from certain neighborhoods in Antwerp. These claims stated that the number of drugs destined for the Netherlands was around 90%. It also stated that criminal organizations based in the Netherlands functioned as distributors for these drugs. Many Moroccan traffickers have anonymously stated that the trafficking operations at the Port of Antwerp would be impressively easy to execute for young people from neighborhoods in Antwerp and Amsterdam. The traffickers often make corrupt deals with police officers to keep the trafficking of drugs run smoothly in exchange for large sums of money.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Bart De Wever, mayor of Antwerp, declared that dozens of surveillance cameras are destroyed daily by young people between the age of 13 and 15 from neighborhoods in Antwerp. They receive in exchange a sum of up to 5,000 euros from traffickers to prevent the police from investigating the drug trade that takes place in these neighborhoods.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Moroccan mafia in the Netherlands and Belgium dominate the European market for cocaine, cannabis and synthetic drugs, alongside the Italian ’Ndrangheta & Camorra, Irish Mob, Serbian mafia and the Albanian mafia. Moroccan gangs in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Rotterdam have a firm foothold in importing cocaine from South America, particularly from Peru and Colombia, where Colombian cartels trust Dutch and Belgian-Moroccan drug traffickers in Antwerp to receive and distribute these drugs.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Dutch investigator Pieter Tops made an astonishing discovery in September 2018: trafficking networks in the Netherlands easily collect up to 20 billion euros through the trade of synthetic drugs such as XTC or amphetamines. About a 1000 kilos of cocaine in South America that has a value of under a million euros, can easily bring up to 180 million euros when it arrives on the European mainland.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Pieter Tops has warned the Belgian authorities that the traffickers have so much money re-invested in legal businesses, which seriously affects the communities and neighborhoods from where these traffickers originate. The mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, has also asked for reinforcements to investigate the drug trade and the Moroccan mafia in Antwerp, to intercept a maximum number of people who are involved in these drug trafficking businesses.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Ridouan Taghi is a former Dutch-Moroccan drug trafficker and crime boss. He was specialised in forming criminal groups and coalitions that operated as international cocaine cartels. He is suspected of being behind the orchestration of several assassinations, attacks and kidnappings in connection to the "Mocro-War". The DEA estimated that around a third of all cocaine trafficking in Europe was done through his organisation, with a virtually monopoly on Peruvian cocaine.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Documents produced by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States, and sent to the Dutch police, exposed what appeared to be a super drug cartel headed by Ridouan Taghi, alongside Raffaele Imperiale (Camorra's drugs and arms dealer), Daniel Kinahan (Irish reputed gang boss) and Edin Gačanin (Bosnian drug trafficker).


title: Moroccan mafia

text: After the decryption of the telecommunication servers of Ennetcom by the Dutch and Canadian authorities, it also exposed a very close and personal friendship between Ridouan Taghi, and Chilean cartel boss Rico "El Rico" Eduardo Riquelme Vega, who was arrested in Santiago, Chile in 2017.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Following the arrest of Benaouf A. in 2013, and the assassinations of two rival drug lords, Gwenette Martha and Samir Bouyakhrichan in 2014, Taghi was able to establish himself as one of the most powerful drug traffickers in Europe. The Dutch government also considered him to be "one of the most dangerous drug traffickers in Europe".


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Ridouan Taghi was able to keep a very low profile and run his operation unknowingly for many years. The first time his name was mentioned in a police report was in 2015, but by this time he already had left the Netherlands to live somewhere abroad. The Dutch authorities were only able to paint a clear picture of Taghi after Nabil B., a former member of Taghi's organisation, decided to turn state's evidence. Nabil B. was involved as a driver in a contract killing attempt, but the killers accidentally killed Hakim Changachi instead of the intended target. Changachi was part of a local crime family that allied themselves with Taghi. Because of the accidental killing, the relationship between Taghi and the Changachi family turned sour. Taghi allegedly wanted to kill Nabil B. as a punishment for being involved in killing the wrong person, which eventually led to Nabil B. collaborating with the Dutch authorities instead. As a result of this, Taghi ordered to kill the innocent brother of Nabil B. who was a respected business owner. Also his lawyer Derk Wiersum was assassinated on the orders of Taghi, which eventually shocked the Netherlands. The Dutch parliament considered this as an attack on the Dutch legal system and the Dutch state, and a manhunt on Taghi by the Dutch authorities was eventually launched.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Following the attack on the Dutch news outlet "De Telegraaf" and the murders of journalist Martin Kok and lawyer Derk Wiersum, Ridouan Taghi became the most wanted man in the Netherlands for several years, with multiple international arrest warrants in his name. He was also ranked as one of the main fugitives on the Interpol list. To anyone who was able to give information that could have led to his arrest, a reward of 100.000 euros was promised by the Dutch authorities, which was the highest reward for a fugitive in Dutch history. Taghi's right-hand man Saïd Razzouki took refuge in Medellín, Colombia under the protection of the Oficina de Envigado and the Clan del Golfo cartel, but was later on arrested by the Colombian authorities, the FBI and the DEA.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Iranian government allegedly protected Taghi as he worked together with the Iranian secret service, to assassinate enemies of the Iranian state who were hiding out on European soil.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: On 16 December 2019, Taghi was arrested in his mansion in Dubai after a manhunt by the Moroccan and European authorities, and three days later he was deported to the Netherlands. He is currently incarcerated in the maximum security prison of Vught, and he is the main suspect in the current marengo trial, which is considered to be the largest criminal trial in Dutch history. He is facing life of imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The former president of Suriname, Desi Bouterse, is faced with corruption charges after cooperating with Taghi and his left hand man Mao R.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In August 2020, six prominent lawyers in the Netherlands were accused of having delivered information to Ridouan Taghi's organisation in exchange for high sums of money. Their names were also added to the Marengo trials.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In July 2021, the most prominent Dutch crime journalist Peter R. de Vries was assassinated after he left the studio of RTL Boulevard in Amsterdam, right after he appeared on a popular TV show. This assassination deeply shocked the Netherlands, with many politicians and celebrities sharing their condolences and speaking out on the increase of violence in the Netherlands. According to the Dutch authorities, all tracks lead to the already imprisoned Taghi. De Vries acted as a close confidant to Nabil B., the crown witness in the Marengo trial whose own brother, alongside his lawyer, were assassinated by Taghi's organisation for exposing their inner workings. The person who is suspected of killing De Vries, is a relative of the person who is in charge of Taghi's hit squad, which gives the Dutch authorities more reason to believe that Taghi's organization is responsible for the killing. However, it is still unclear who gave the order of the shooting, since Taghi himself was already in a high-security prison at the time of the shooting. T. Youssef one of Taghi's lawyers and being a cousin of Taghi has been arrested on 8 October 2021 after being suspected of planning a jailbreak and smuggling messages out of prison to Taghi's organisation.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Bouyakhrichan organisation was a criminal organisation led by Samir Bouyakhrichan (also known as "Scarface"), who was a billionaire entrepreneur and drug lord. Samir was specialised in large scale drug trafficking which he gained through collaborations with Colombian cartels. His organisation also operated in Spain, where it controlled parts of the Costa del Sol region.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Bouyakhrichan was known for using his fortune to organize extravagant private parties by renting luxurious rooms in places like Dubai and Amsterdam, which included champagne, cocaine, and a lot of women and escorts. The guests were mostly Moroccan and British. One of these private parties was that of 30 June 2012, at the Apollo Hotel in Amsterdam. During this evening, many major drug lords were present, alongside the famous Dutch singer Gordon.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Samir Bouyakhrichan was a known rival of the Taghi organisation, and he was also considered to be a rival of Naoufal Fassih. On 29 August 2014, at the age of 34, Samir was assassinated in southern Spain by 2 contract killers. The assassination was allegedly orchestrated by the organisation of Naoufal Fassih.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: After his death, his organisation was taken over by his brother Karim Bouyakhrichan (also known as "Taxi)". According to the Dutch authorities, Taghi and his associate Rico "El Rico" Eduardo Riquelme Vega were "hunting" for Karim to dismantle the Bouyakhrichan organisation.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Another notable member within the Bouyakhrichan organization was Naima Jillal, who earned herself the reputation of the biggest female drug trafficker within the "Mocro maffia". Nicknamed "Auntie" or "the Godmother of Cocaine", she became a key player within the international cocaine trade and acted as a broker between Latin-American cartels and European criminal organisations.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: On 20 October 2019, Naima went missing, allegedly because multiple crime groups were keeping an eye on her after she tipped off drug shipments of rival organizations to the authorities. After her disappearance, there were allegedly images circulating on the internet of her body being chopped up into pieces. Authorities believe she is buried under a concrete floor in a warehouse in the port of Antwerp, but up until now no human remains were found. However, forensic researchers did find pieces of clothing and a handbag under the concrete floor, which were believed to be owned by Naima Jillal.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2017, two masked hitmen fired shots at the "Café La Crème" in Marrakech, Morocco, killing Hamza Chaib, a 26-year-old medical student, and injuring two others. A Glock 19 and a motorcycle used by the hitmen to flee were found charred nearby.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The hitmen were identified by the Marrakech Prefecture Judicial Police as Shardyone Ulises Girigorio Semerel, a 29-year-old Dutch-Surinamese national and Edwin Gabriel Robles Martínez, a 24-year-old Dutch-Dominican national. Six other suspects were detained. They were known to Moroccan authorities for their involvement in cases of international drug trafficking, kidnapping, armed robbery, and attempted homicide.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Their initial target was the owner of the lounge, Mustapha "Mous" El Fechtali, a member of the Bouyakhrichan clan involved in international money laundering.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Moroccan authorities are known to use torture on suspects to gain information, leading to the hitmen quickly pointing out Taghi as their ringleader. The shooting led to a closer collaboration between the Dutch and Moroccan authorities to combat organized crime, especially towards Taghi's organisation.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The hitmen were sentenced to death by the Marrakech Court of Appeal in 2019. Mustapha El Fechtali was sentenced to 15 years in jail for drug trafficking. An alleged coordinator, 33-year-old Seddik Rais, was freed after his extradition from the Canary Islands.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Ait Soussan organisation is a criminal organisation led by Houssine Ait Soussan. He is a major drug trafficker who also used to own the Dutch soccer-club "ZVV 't Knooppunt". Houssine Ait Soussan is notably a prominent figure within the Moroccan mafia in the Netherlands and Belgium, and he was also allied with the Bouyakhrichan organisation. The Ait Soussan organization is responsible for distributing tons of cocaine across all of Western Europe. Houssine Ait Soussan is also considered to be one of the original participating figures within the "Mocro-War," which was sparked after a missing shipment of cocaine in the port of Antwerp.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: As a result of this, Houssine Ait Soussan is believed to be behind the kidnapping of Abdelkader "the Jew" Bouker, a major Belgian-Moroccan drug trafficker who worked closely together with the Israeli mafia, and went missing in 2016.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: He was also believed to be behind the kidnapping of Younes El Ballouti, the younger brother of Othman El Ballouti, who is considered to be one of the biggest drug lords in Belgium. Houssine Ait Soussan allegedly kidnapped him as revenge, because Colombian cartels preferred to work with the El Ballouti clan instead of his organization.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Houssine Ait Soussan was for many years wanted by the Dutch and Belgian authorities for his involvement in numerous of assassinations and kidnappings, which mostly took place in Antwerp and Brussels. He orchestrated his kidnappings and assassinations from Central America, to stay off the radar from the European police. He was also believed to take refuge in Morocco and Dubai.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: On 26 July 2015, Houssine Ait Soussan was arrested by the Moroccan police in the port of Tangier with false documents. A few days after his arrest, two searches took place in the apartments where he stayed at in Marrakech. At least 10 false Dutch, French and Moroccan identity documents were found, alongside 34 luxury watches, 10 phones, two tablets, 178,570 dirhams and 700 euros. Houssine Ait Soussan was eventually released after 3 months by the Moroccan authorities. The Dutch and Belgian authorities believe that Houssine Ait Soussan is currently running his operations while hiding out in Morocco.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Turtle clan (also known as "The Turtles" or the El Yousfi crime family) is a Moroccan criminal organisation based in Antwerp (Belgium), who is believed to be active since 2010. The organisation is based around the El Yousfi family, who are originally from Nador, Morocco and based in Borgherhout, Antwerp. They are considered to be one of the 5 Moroccan drug clans who control the cocaine trade in the port of Antwerp. Several members of the clan were behind the theft of 200 kilos of cocaine at the Port of Antwerp in 2012, which were intended for Benaouf A., the right-hand man of Houssine Ait Soussan. This theft eventually sparked the infamous "Mocro-War" across Belgium and the Netherlands, which resulted in countless kidnappings and assassinations.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2017, 21 shootings took place in Antwerp which were connected to the Turtle clan. The organisation, which is allied with the Mixers clan, is also at the origin of the illegal economy that dominates over the legal economy in the district of Borgerhout, Antwerp. The Turtle clan dominates the Belgian cocaine trade for over decade. The Flemish federal government often adopts the nickname ""Borgerokko"" or ""the capital of coke"" for the city of Antwerp and its districts.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The two main commanders of the organization, Nacerdine Turtle and Nordine El H. are currently running their organization from Dubai. Nordine El H. was arrested in Dubai on 18 June 2020, due to an international arrest warrant that was sent out by the Belgian courts for his involvement in large scale drug trafficking, but he was eventually released on bail. The majority of the Turtle clan members are currently suspected of hiding out in Dubai and Nador, Morocco.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2016, a member of the family celebrated his wedding in the Borgerhout district of Antwerp, causing controversy throughout the country as well as on social media. The controversy revolved particularly around the procession that included dozens of luxury cars, which paraded through the lower class district of Borgerhout. According to the Belgian press, the price of these cars was estimated at 7 million euros.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In February 2018, the comedy-crime movie "Patser" was released in Dutch and Belgian cinemas. The story of the movie is loosely based on the Turtle clan.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Since 2018, many Grenade attacks have occurred in the streets of Antwerp. They are particularly linked to the organisation of the Turtles.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Noffel clan was a criminal organization that was founded by Naoufal Fassih. Naoufal moved to his cousin Abdelhadi Yaqout in Spain, at that time already one of the richest personalities in Marbella. Naoufal allied himself with the Taghi organization, the Irish Mob and some members of the Martha organization, to assassinate the billionaire drug lord Samir Bouyakhrichan in 2014. Naoufal was eventually spending more time in Ireland than in Spain. His relationship with Ireland's Kinahan clan was so strong that they even shared the same hideouts. It was also in an apartment of the Irish Kinahan clan where Naoufal was eventually arrested by the special forces of Dublin. He was sentenced by the Dutch court to life of imprisonment.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Naoufal's cousin, Abdelhadi Yaqout, was a multi millionaire businessman. He originated from Khouribga, in the south of Casablanca (Morocco), where he had spent a part of his childhood. After he emigrated to Spain, he became a very successful entrepreneur in Marbella. He was the owner of several clubs and bars in Puerto Banus, including the "Rotana Shisha Lounge", the "Portside bar" and the "Tibu nightclub", which were frequently visited by Arab princes, Russian businessmen and celebrities. Yaqout was also a friend of the Anglo-Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Yaqout laundered money for the Kinahan clan, and he was a partner of Daniel Kinahan. According to the Spanish authorities, they had very close relations. Yaqout had also been linked to the timeshare vacation apartment scam of British gangster John "Goldfinger" Palmer (who was murdered in 2015). This scam cheated 20,000 customers out of their money which reached a figure of up to 400 million euros. It was reported that Yaqout was involved in cocaine trafficking alongside prominent figures of the Moroccan mafia, such as his cousin Naoufal Fassih and Ridouan Taghi.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Yaqout was assassinated in his car in the neighborhood of Las Petunias in San Pedro de Alcántara on 22 January 2019. At least one hitman was involved, riddling the drivers' side of Yaqout's Bentley with more than 20 bullets while he was waiting for an electric gate to open. He allegedly tried to escape the assassination by crawling onto the passenger side but was found dead halfway between the seats. He is buried in his hometown in Khouribga, Morocco. The Bouyakhrichan organization are the main suspects of this assassination.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Naoufal Fassih was alongside Taghi allegedly allied with the Iranian secret service and ordered to carry out gangland-style killings on enemies of the Iranian government who were hiding out on European soil.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Mimoun ""Rocky"" Kaabouni, who was nicknamed ""The Moroccan Escobar"", was born in Ben Taïeb, a village in the province of Nador. He grew up in Hoensbroek, in the Netherlands, where he and his brother owned a coffeeshop named "Happy Days". While often visiting Amsterdam, he eventually started meeting big names within the Moroccan mafia with whom he maintained regular contact. Mimoun left the Netherlands for southern Spain and Romania, where he founded his own criminal organisation made up of Lithuanians and Colombians. Mimoun, who was already bringing in tons of cocaine through the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Algeciras, wanted to create a new route in Romania through the port of Constanța. He is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence in Romania for a record seizure of 2.5 tons of cocaine (the biggest seizure of cocaine in the country's history). Mimoun was arrested in 2016 when he tried to leave Spain through the Málaga Airport after the seizure in Romania, which was worth 600 million euros. It was one of the largest drug seizures in Eastern-European history.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Mixers (also known as the Sebabti crime family), is a Moroccan crime family made up of five brothers who were born in Borgerhout, Antwerp, and originate from Berkane in north-eastern Morocco. The Mixers are suspected of having collaborated with Colombian cartels, where they had the role of smuggling drugs through the Port of Antwerp, and supplying criminal organizations all over Europe. The organisation became active in the early 2000s, and they are considered to be the oldest drug trafficking network which is still active in Antwerp. They are also considered to be one of the 5 Moroccan drug clans who control the cocaine trade in the port of Antwerp.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Mixers are seen by Belgian politicians as one of the most dangerous Belgian drug networks in the country, due to their excessive criminal staff and large numbers of people who are hired in exchange for large sums of money. In the summer of 2018, one of the Mixers was spotted in Tangier driving an exclusive Bentley Continental GT.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2017, the Port of Antwerp once again broke an intercepted drug record. The Mixers were among the main suspects. The Belgian special services have joined forces with the Moroccan authorities to investigate this family in Morocco. The Moroccan police intercepted 10.2 million euros in cash in a 400,000 euro apartment in Tangier, alongside a villa in Berkane, as well as several luxury boats on the Saïdia coast.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2019, a significant number of bombs and grenades were thrown in several neighbourhoods of Antwerp which were aimed at rival gangs. According to the mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, the perpetrators would have been hired men working for the Mixers clan.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The El Ballouti clan is based in Antwerp, Belgium and led by drug lord Othman El Ballouti. Originally from Al Hoceïma, Othman grew up in the district of Borgerhout, and from a very early age he regularly visited the Port of Antwerp. With the goal of never getting caught by the police, he trafficked thousands of euros in narcotics every day. The newspaper "De Volkskrant" describes: ""Othman climbed the containers and knew how to calculate very well. He quickly stopped climbing the containers by establishing his own gang who did the climbing instead"."


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Othman later on emigrated to Dubai, where he acquired 4 Villas. He also owns an apartment in the famous "Adress Residence Sky View" which is worth 1.5 million euros, alongside six other luxury homes with a total value of around 8.5 million euros. This information was published by the OCCRP (Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) after he escaped during an arrest at the Zaventem airport in Brussels, in 2016. The Belgian authorities discovered that Othman El Ballouti has a net worth of at least 100 million euros, a number that ranks him amongst the richest Belgians in the country.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The El Ballouti clan is now considered as one of the largest drug trafficking networks in Belgium, and they are also considered to be one of the 5 Moroccan drug clans who control the cocaine trade in the port of Antwerp.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Alongside the Mixers clan and Turtle clan, the El Ballouti clan is held responsible for a significant number of bombs and grenades that were thrown in several neighbourhoods of Antwerp, which were aimed at rival gangs.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Othman El Ballouti is currently hiding out in Dubai, from where he is running his drug operation in Europe.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Fish Farmers clan (Dutch: "De Visboeren") are led by the owners of the well-known fishmonger "De Antwerpse Visser" in the districts of Borgerhout and Kiel in Antwerp. The organization is led by the brothers Mohamed A., Rachid A. and Hassan A., who quickly established themselves as main contributors within the international cocaine trade. They established the organization in the early 2010s and took control over the cocaine trade throughout Flanders. Dozens of containers from Colombian cartels were trafficked through the organization of the Fish Farmers clan. They very quickly competed against other organizations within the Moroccan mafia.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2018, the Kali-team (an anti-Moroccan mafia police unit from Antwerp) discovered that the Fish Farmers were amongst the main owners of a luxury suite in the Hilton hotel near the Tangier-Ville railway station in Morocco. In March 2020, the three brothers and their father Mohamed (73) were sentenced up to eight years in prison.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2015, the Belgian authorities dismantled the Belgian-Moroccan Banana gang (Dutch: "De Bananenbende"), which was led by Karim A., Nabil A. and Khalid O.H., after a seizure that contained 3.4 tonnes of cocaine in Antwerp. The drugs were hidden in two containers of bananas from Colombia that had passed through Ecuador. The drugs were estimated of being worth near 100 million euros. The investigators admitted that the clan had been importing shipments of this type for many years and that they had important links with several Moroccan clans in the Netherlands. Fourteen people were arrested, including the manager of a hookah bar in Antwerp, and the owner of a car dealership. The Belgian intelligence services estimated that this clan generated around 300 million euros a year, with importing no more than 10 tonnes of cocaine from South America.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Dutch government and its intelligence service AIVD claim to have "strong evidence" that Iran used Dutch-Moroccan gangsters to eliminate at least two of its "enemies of the state" on foreign soil, but also that it was actively protecting crime bosses by providing them with a safe haven. The Dutch Ministry of Justice suspects that Ridouan Taghi was protected by Iran's secret service. According to the Dutch authorities he was believed to take frequent trips to Iran on fast private yachts while he was hiding out in Dubai. After making a 150+ kilometer trip, Taghi allegedly had several safe houses at his disposal.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The Dutch authorities claim that he received this level of protection from the Iranian government because he was instrumental in helping Iran eliminate one or more of its most wanted "enemies of the state".


title: Moroccan mafia

text: These allegations came after the gangland-style assassination of Ali Motamed, a 56-year-old electrician who had settled in a rowhouse after coming to the Netherlands as a refugee. He was killed on 15 December 2015, by two hitmen.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: For a while, investigators couldn't find a clue for a motive behind the killing. Then it became known that Motamed was really Mohammad Reza Kolahi Samadi, a member of the "People's Mujahedin of Iran", who, according to Iranian authorities, was the mastermind behind the 1981 bombing of the headquarters of the Islamic Republican Party, killing over 70 officials.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Dutch investigators were baffled when it became clear that the killers were working on the orders of the Dutch-Moroccan crime boss Naoufal Fassih, a close associate of Ridouan Taghi. The Dutch government see him as the link between Taghi and the Iranian secret service.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: However, the execution of Mohammad Reza Kolahi was not the only murder in which the Dutch government accuses Iran of being involved in. In 2017, an assassin shot several bullets into Ahmad Mola Nissi, the leader of the Iranian separatist group "Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz". Nissi died in front of his house in The Hague. He had been living in the Netherlands for over a decade. Dutch investigators believe a criminal organisation from the port city of Rotterdam was involved in this hit.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: A break in the murder case of Mohammad Reza Kolahi occurred when prosecutors got their hands-on text messages after they were able to unlock a decrypted cell phone from one of the participants in the plot. The two hitmen were discovered to have extensive criminal records and longstanding ties to organized crime.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The text messages showed they were monitoring Samadi and had no clue why he was targeted, only that they were assigned with the task and were eager to get the job done. In April 2019, they were sentenced to 25 and 20 years of imprisonment for their roles in the murder. The messages also implicated Fassih, who was found guilty for ordering the murder and sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in this hit. However, all three suspects remain silent about any of their involvement in this case


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In June 2018, the Dutch government evicted two diplomats from the Iranian embassy and deported them from the country. The two men were members of Iran's intelligence agencies. This case eventually created more tension between the 2 countries.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: During the 2010s, the Moroccan mafia was widely talked about in Dutch and Belgian politics. After the assassination of Derk Wiersum, a lawyer with information about Ridouan Taghi, Geert Wilders expressed his discontent in the Dutch parliament.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Journalist and crime reporter John van den Heuvel was targeted by the Moroccan mafia after he made numerous statements about the workings of their criminal activities. In June 2018, the headquarter of the Dutch newspaper "Panorama" was attacked by a rocket launcher after they published articles on the Moroccan mafia. Shortly afterwards, the headquarter of another Dutch news-outlet "De Telegraaf" was attacked by a car, which was rammed into the office and set on fire afterwards. John van den Heuvel, who worked for "De Telegraaf" in the past, delivered his personal opinion on Dutch television by evoking the name of the criminal who was allegedly responsible:


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Following this statement, John van den Heuvel was targeted by criminals who planned attacks against him. During a police investigation, a rocket launcher was found in the home of Yassine A., which he had prepared to use on the residence of John van den Heuvel. As a result of this, John van den Heuvel cancelled his television program on RTL Boulevard where he was to participate as the host of a show. A year later he also received death threats from Ridouan Taghi, who was on the run. He warned John van den Heuvel that his name was on Taghi's blacklist. Taghi also placed a bounty on John van den Heuvel for a large sum of money. In December 2019, Ridouan Taghi was eventually arrested in Dubai. Following this event, John van den Heuvel had delivered another statement


title: Moroccan mafia

text: In 2017, writer Raf Sauviller published his book "Borgerokko Maffia", which was distributed to many libraries across Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands. In his book, he discusses the corruption that takes place in the Port of Antwerp amongst police officers and Customs controls. According to research which was carried out in 2018, the municipality of Borgerhout, Antwerp, had an illegal economy which was larger than the regular economy due to the influx of funds by the Moroccan mafia. During an interview by the newspaper "De Morgen" on the context of this book, the mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, admitted that there were many difficulties on intercepting the main commanders of the Moroccan mafia in Antwerp. He also stated:


title: Moroccan mafia

text: The many murders which were carried out by the Moroccan mafia were a turning point in criminal journalism across Belgium and the Netherlands. Although the Moroccan mafia is not the first criminal phenomenon in these countries, it is the first to receive both international and intensive media coverage. The Dutch virtual tax reforms of the 2010s encouraged the emergence of inexpensive print media, which could therefore be widely distributed and relayed. These broadcasts were the precursors of a trend that gained momentum after the assassination of journalist Martin Kok in 2016. The Dutch newspaper "De Telegraaf" benefited greatly from the public enthusiasm for the criminal war that was taking place in its cities, which received unprecedented media coverage.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: While some Dutch media outlets decided to censor the first and last names of the editors who published articles, other news outlets like "De Telegraaf" did not give into the panic, and refused to practice censorship.


title: Moroccan mafia

text: Over the years, foreign media outlets also reported on the Moroccan mafia, particularly in Germany, Spain, Italy, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Morocco and the United Kingdom. The BBC media estimated that the Netherlands is in the process of becoming a narco-state.


title: Pessary

text: A pessary is a prosthetic device inserted into the vagina for structural and pharmaceutical purposes. It is most commonly used to treat stress urinary incontinence to stop urinary leakage and to treat pelvic organ prolapse to maintain the location of organs in the pelvic region. It can also be used to administer medications locally in the vagina or as a method of contraception.


title: Pessary

text: Pessaries come in different shapes and sizes, so it is important that individuals be fitted for them by health care professionals to avoid any complications. However, there are a few instances and circumstances that allow individuals to purchase pessaries from a store without a prescription or without seeking help from a health care professional. Some side effects may occur if pessaries are not sized properly or regularly maintained, but with the appropriate care, pessaries are generally safe and well tolerated.


title: Pessary

text: Early use of pessaries dates back to the ancient Egyptians, as they described using pessaries to treat pelvic organ prolapse. The term 'pessary' itself, is derived from the Ancient Greek word 'pessós', meaning round stone used for games. Pessaries are even mentioned in the oldest surviving copy of the Greek medical text, Hippocratic Oath, as something that physicians should never administer for the purposes of an abortion: "Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion." The earliest documented pessaries were natural products. For example, Greek physicians Hippocrates and Soranus described inserting half of a pomegranate into the vagina to treat prolapse. It was not until the 16th century that the first purpose-made pessaries were made. For instance, in the late 1500s, Ambroise Paré was described as making oval pessaries from hammered brass and waxed cork. Nowadays, pessaries are generally made from silicone and are well tolerated and effective among patients who need them.


title: Pessary

text: The most common use for pessaries is to treat pelvic organ prolapse. A pelvic organ prolapse can occur when the muscles and tissues surrounding the bladder, uterus, vagina, small bowel, and rectum stop working properly to hold the organs in place and the organs begin to drop outside the body. The most common cause of such prolapse is childbirth, usually multiple births. Obesity, long-term respiratory problems, constipation, pelvic organ cancers, and hysterectomies can all be causes for pelvic organ prolapses as well. Some signs and symptoms include feeling pressure in the pelvic area, lower back pain, painful intercourse, urinary incontinence, a feeling that something is out of place, constipation, or bleeding from the vagina. Pessaries are manual devices that are inserted into the vagina to help support and reposition descended pelvic organs, which helps to prevent the worsening of prolapse, helps with symptom relief, and can delay or prevent the need for surgery. Further, pessaries can be used for surgery preparation as a way to maintain prolapse without progression. This is especially useful when a surgery may need to be delayed.


title: Pessary

text: Stress urinary incontinence is leakage of urine that is caused by sudden pressure on the bladder. It occurs during activities that increase the amount of pressure on the bladder such as coughing, sneezing, laughing, and exercising. The pressure causes opening of the sphincter muscles which usually help prevent urine leakage. Stress urinary incontinence is a common medical problem especially in women as about 1 in 3 women are affected by this condition at some point in their lives. Pessaries are considered a safe non-surgical treatment option for stress urinary incontinence as it can control the urine leakage by pushing the urethra closed. Pessaries can be removed any time.


title: Pessary

text: Some additional uses for pessaries are for an incarcerated uterus, prevention of preterm birth and an incompetent cervix. In early pregnancy the uterus can be displaced, which can lead to pain and rectal and urinary complications. A pessary can be used to treat this condition and support the uterus. Preterm birth is when babies are born prematurely, which puts the baby at increased risk for complications and even death. Currently, the use of pessaries to help prevent preterm birth is an ongoing area of research. The use of pessaries for an incompetent cervix is not commonly practiced today, but they have been used in the past. Specifically, an incompetent cervix is when the cervix begins to open up prematurely. This can lead to a preterm birth or even a miscarriage. Pessaries can be used to correctly position the cervix, increasing the success of pregnancy.


title: Pessary

text: A therapeutic pessary is a medical device similar to the outer ring of a diaphragm. Therapeutic pessaries are used to support the uterus, vagina, bladder, or rectum. Pessaries are most commonly used for pelvic organ prolapse and considered a good treatment option for women who need or desire non-surgical management or future pregnancy. It is used to treat prolapse of uterine, vaginal wall (vaginal vault), bladder (cystocele), rectum (rectocele), or small bowel (enterocele). It is also used to treat stress urinary incontinence.


title: Pessary

text: There are different types of pessaries but most of them are made out of silicone—a harmless and durable material. Pessaries are mainly categorized into two types, supporting pessaries and space-occupying pessaries. Support pessaries function by supporting the prolapse and space-occupying pessaries by filling the vaginal space. There are also lever type pessaries.


title: Pessary

text: Ring with support pessaries are the supporting type. These are often used as a first-line treatment and used for earlier stage prolapse since individuals can easily insert and remove them on their own without a doctor's help. These can be easily folded in half for insertion.


title: Pessary

text: Gellhorn pessaries are considered a type of supporting and space-occupying pessary. These resemble the shape of a mushroom and are used for more advanced pelvic organ prolapse. These are less preferred than ring with support pessary due to difficulty with self-removal and insertion.


title: Pessary

text: Marland pessaries are another type of supporting pessary. These are used to treat pelvic organ prolapse as well as stress urinary incontinence. These pessaries have a ring at their base and a wedge-shaped ridge on one side. Although these pessaries are less likely to fall out than standard ring with support pessaries, individuals find it difficult to insert or remove them on their own.


title: Pessary

text: Donut pessaries are considered space-occupying pessaries. These are used for more advanced pelvic organ prolapse including cystocele or rectocele as well as a second or third-degree uterine prolapse. Due to its shape and size, it is one of the hardest ones to insert and remove.


title: Pessary

text: Cube pessaries are space-occupying pessaries in the shape of a cube that are available in 7 sizes. The pessary is inserted into the vagina and kept in place by the suction of its 6 surfaces to the vaginal wall. Cube pessaries must be removed before sexual intercourse and replaced daily. Cube pessaries are generally used as a last resort only if the individuals cannot retain any other pessaries. This is due to undesirable side effects such as vaginal discharge and erosion of the vaginal wall. In order to remove the cube pessary, the suction must be broken by grasping the device.


title: Pessary

text: Gehrung pessaries are space-occupying pessaries that are similar to the Gellhorn pessaries. They are silicone device that are placed into the vagina and used for second or third degree (more severe) uterine prolapse. These contain metal and should be removed prior to any MRI, ultrasound or X-rays. They can also be used to help with stress urinary incontinence such as urine leaks during exercising or coughing. These types of pessaries need to be fitted by a health care professional to ensure proper size. Once placed it should not move when standing, sitting, or squatting. It should be cleaned with mild soap and warm water every day or two.


title: Pessary

text: Hodge pessaries are a type of lever pessary. Although these can be used for mild cystocele and stress urinary incontinence, they are not commonly used. Smith, and Risser pessaries are other types of lever pessaries and they differ in shape.