Drug lord and Kinahan ally jailed for six years over cocaine trafficking
Mink Kok, Dutch associate of Christy Kinahan Snr, has been jailed for six years by a court in The Hague over the importation of cocaine.
Dutch media reports that the drug lord appealled the decision after the Dutch Public Prosecution Service originally sought to put him away in prison for nine years.
The appeal resulted in his acquittal of the 'actual importation' of the drugs in question.
Kok, however, was found guilty of preparing for the import of 400 kilos of cocaine, alongside the possession of cocaine, as well as preparing a drug lab.
Known commonly 'The Thinker', he was arrested in Lebanon in 2022 with his son-in-law, where he stayed for a year.
Christy Kinahan Snr
Up to February 2016, he had been behind bars in the Middle-East country after a conviction for possession of 53 kilos of cocaine.
The convicted kingpin has previously been labelled 'boss of the cocaine world' and is known for having a 'long history' in the criminal underworld.
The 400-kilo consignment of cocaine for which Kok was convicted had arrived in 2020 via the port of Antwerp in a consignment of bananas.
However, the shipment was somehow mislaid and was eventually found at a supermarket in Remscheid, Germany.
The convicted drug trafficker and gun runner had struck up a close working relationship with Christy Kinahan Snr when they were both based in Amsterdam in the 1990s.
Veteran Dutch drug lord, Mink Kok
News in 90 Seconds - July 24th
It is believed the pair worked together to import millions of euro worth of cocaine and ecstasy into Ireland and the UK.
Kok's son-in-law, named only as Najim Z, is also accused by the Public Prosecution Service of being behind the importation from South America of two batches of 750 and 840 kilos of cocaine.
These were intercepted in 2021 in the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam.
According to the justice officials, evidence against Kok stems from intercepted Sky ECC messages.
There was no Sky telephone found with Kok when he was arrested, but detectives say that the investigation against Kok started after he admitted to a TV programme that he used Sky telephones to communicate with others.
His lawyer previously denied that Kok was the user of the two Sky phones attributed to him.
His son-in-law Najim Z (42) was previously sentenced for those two coke shipments in a separate case.
He was handed down an eight-year prison sentence minus time spent in pre-detention and a detention period in Lebanon.
However, prosecutors have demanded another 12 years in prison against him two weeks ago in the case which is completely separate from that of Kok's.
Various media have referred to Najim Z based on various judicial or police sources as a 'leader' in Ridouan Taghi's network.
Dutch-Moroccan Taghi is regarded as one of Europe's biggest drugs traffickers and is a key associate of the Kinahan Cartel.
He was one of a number of high-profile criminals who were guests at Daniel Kinahan's wedding in Dubai in 2017.
Along with a number of his associates, Taghi is currently facing multiple charges ranging from assassinations, attempted killings, and murder plots.
Lawyers for Najim Z have previously contested that their client should be considered as 'the financial man' in Taghi's drug network.
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