An alleged billionaire cocaine kingpin said to have smuggled hundreds of millions of pounds of the illicit drug into Europe has been arrested in Dubai.
Belgian citizen Otham El Ballouti, 36, had been on the run and is facing up to 20 years behind bars for allegedly masterminding the distribution of €275million worth of cocaine in 2021.
The kingpin, know as ‘El Patron’ of the ruthless Mocro mafia was detained in the United Arab Emirates as a ‘high-value target’, according to Belgian media.
In September, he was sentenced to seven years in prison in Antwerp for importing 800kilos of cocaine.
He also faces the possible 20-year prison sentence, along with a fine of €800,000, after prosecutors were able to access countless messages and images as evidence that El Ballouti was making ‘dizzying amounts of money’.
El Ballouti has been described by Belgian police as ‘the most imaginative drug criminal in Antwerp’.
He was also called ‘the richest man in Antwerp’ by the city’s mayor Bar De Wever and is said to be worth billions.
El Ballouti fled to Dubai in 2015 and has been living in a high-rise apartment said to be worth €1.5million.
He also allegedly owned or controlled properties worth more than €33million, but has insisted that his money comes from his business in luxury goods.
‘I am not the big drug boss that people want me to be. I dare to say that I am a good person,’ he told Dutch newspaper Gazet van Antwerp in 2023.
‘There is no blood on my hands’.
Meanwhile his brother Younes is a key player in Belgium’s illicit drug trade and was previously convicted of smuggling cocaine.
Younes was also kidnapped in 2017 by mafia rivals in France, and his brother had to negotiate his release by paying what is believed to have been around 5million euros.
He is also the uncle of 11-year-old Firdaous who made headlines last year after she was shot in the chest and died after being caught up in a crossfire between drug gangs.
It comes after a Belgian court jailed dozens of people in the nation’s biggest drug trial, after 120 defendants were accused of participating in international cocaine and cannabis trafficking.
The Belgian city of Antwerp is considered to be the cocaine capital of Europe.
Last week, an Antwerp investigating magistrate was forced into hiding after receiving threats by a gangster.