Sierra Leone has been in a state of shock ever since one of Freetown’s most astonishing urban myths was confirmed as fact – that one of Europe’s most dangerous criminals, convicted Dutch cocaine kingpin Jos Leijdekkers, or ‘Bolle Jos’ (‘Fat Jos’ in Dutch), is at large in Sierra Leone and believed to be running his business there.
Leijdekkers, 33, was captured on video on 1 January sitting next to and chatting with Agnes Bio, 30, a daughter of President Julius Maada Bio, only two rows behind the President and the First Lady Fatima Maada Bio, at a church service. Dozens of family members and top government officials, including the Chief Minister, David Sengeh, were at the New Year’s Day thanksgiving service in the President’s home village of Tihun, Southern Province.
Agnes Bio is the partner of Leijdekkers and they have been pictured together in romantic settings on social media. She is a particular favourite of her father’s, who has promoted her career in the foreign service. After serving as an ‘advisor’ in the foreign ministry, she is now accredited to Sierra Leone’s permanent mission to the UN in New York, Africa Confidential has confirmed, and as such is immune from arrest or detention or having her bags searched on entry or exit from the United States.
Leijdekkers was sentenced in the Netherlands in absentia in June to 24 years in prison for smuggling seven tonnes of cocaine, robbery, and ordering a killing. Before Leijdekkers was identified in Sierra Leone, Africa Confidential was investigating the involvement of top government officials there in cocaine smuggling. Like several neighbouring countries, Sierra Leone is no stranger to the cocaine trade (see Box, Freetown, the cocaine entrepôt).
Sources in Freetown say the Dutchman took over Sierra Leone’s existing cocaine smuggling network, and, deploying enormous bribes, recruited members of the country’s national security infrastructure to provide logistical and security services.
Move from Turkey
Leijdekkers ran his operation from Turkey until late 2022, according to media reports, when he disappeared. His presence in Sierra Leone became public after a video surfaced which was shot in the early hours of 1 January 2023 at Freetown’s popular nightclub Scarlet, where he got into a scuffle with Hussein Fawaz, the nephew of Haj Fawaz, a prominent Sierra Leonean-Lebanese businessman, we hear.
According to a police statement, the fight began after Fawaz attempted to calm down a quarrel between a security guard and a man identified as ‘investor and businessman Omar Sheriff’. Leijdekkers goes by this name in Sierra Leone, the authorities have acknowledged.
Leijdekkers is clearly identifiable in the video. He slapped Fawaz in retaliation and in the end, his bodyguard fired towards Fawaz, injuring his legs. Also in the video is a man accused of being a key operative in Leijdekkers’s operation, Alusine Kanneh, Sierra Leone’s Chief Immigration Officer. Kanneh has been MP for Nomo and Tonkia chiefdoms in Kenema District since 2012 and a deputy whip for the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) before he was catapulted into his current job by the President.
When the video surfaced, Kanneh was accused of being part of Leijdekkers’s network. Kanneh denied the charge, saying that he was simply trying to separate the combatants and did not know either man. ‘The malicious allegations suggesting that Hon. Kanneh has been associating with a wanted drug dealer are completely unfounded and fabricated to discredit his efforts,’ he added.
As well as asking Kanneh to respond to the allegation about Leijdekkers, we invited him to react to Africa Confidential’s discovery from public records that he had bought three properties in Delaware and Pennsylvania, in the United States, for US$1.9 million between November 2022 and July 2024, asking how he could afford this on a civil servant’s salary.
That July Kanneh had been in the US to meet members of the US Department of Homeland Security to liaise on deportations of Sierra Leone nationals. Kanneh did not reply to our email query, but when contacted by phone denied buying the properties, saying he would ‘send all the evidences later’. By the time of publication these had not been received.
Another local official was identified to us as a pillar of Leijdekkers’s smuggling network who has links to the transport infrastructure of the country but whom we cannot name for legal reasons. According to members of Freetown’s elite Leijdekkers’s operations involve many members of the current administration linked to the President, whether by blood or otherwise, whom he has appointed to their present offices.
The Operational Support Division (OSD), the elite armed paramilitary force of the Sierra Leone police, shepherds Leijdekkers around in a convoy of luxury SUVs, we hear. Such escorts may be rented by individuals but this has to be approved by senior officers. He is usually accompanied by armed bodyguards, other sources said.
Discovery
After the incident in the nightclub, it took the Dutch authorities at least another 18 months to confirm his presence in the country, Dutch prosecutors told Reuters news agency on 24 January. In response to the media reports about Leijdekkers, the government of Sierra Leone has asserted that throughout the festive season, the President ‘attended numerous events’, where he ‘took photographs with many attendees’, and ‘has no knowledge of the identity and the issues detailed in the reports about the individual in question’.
Fatima Bio also took to social media to deny ever having been introduced to the ‘white man’ in the church video or knowing who he was. But a video recently surfaced showing a ceremonial harvesting of rice in Tihun in October, where President Maada Bio, Agnes, and Leijdekkers, among others, can be seen harvesting bunches of rice. Leijdekkers is seen in close proximity to the President.
The extent of the Netherlands’s interest in Leijdekkers is uncertain. State prosecutors in January told Dutch media they had known Leijdekkers’s whereabouts for six months. A spokesperson told Reuters, ‘It is the highest priority of police and prosecutors to get him to the Netherlands to serve his sentence. We are doing everything we can in that regard.’
Yet the Netherlands does not have an extradition treaty with Sierra Leone, which, while it could voluntarily hand Leijdekkers back to the Netherlands, is not under any obligation to do so. A statement by Sierra Leone’s ministry of information on 26 January said the government ‘has not received any formal communication from any country or institution regarding this Jos Leijdekkers’. Information Minister Chernor Bah reiterated that point on television and disclaimed any governmental knowledge of
that name.
Leijdekkers has been officially wanted for arrest since May 2022. Last year, the Dutch authorities guessed he could be making between €840m and €2 billion a year from cocaine smuggling. Before moving to Turkey, he lived in Dubai.
The government statement on Leijdekkers concluded, ‘The government of Sierra Leone strongly reaffirms its commitment to combating transnational crime, including drugs arms and human trafficking and all forms of terrorism. We are resolute in ensuring that our country does not become a haven for organised crime.’
