Dutch prosecutors have increased the reward for information leading to the arrest of narco fugitive Jos Leijdekkers to €2million.
The tenfold increase, announced on Monday, is the largest reward of its kind ever offered in the Netherlands.
Known as ‘Bolle Jos’, the 35-year-old convicted cocaine trafficker is hiding in Sierra Leone, according to Dutch authorities, who say capturing him is a top priority.
Prosecutors say information about his travel plans could prove decisive, particularly if it identifies opportunities to arrest him outside Sierra Leone.
The reward could be paid within days of his detention and a specialist Dutch police team will handle information in strict confidence.
Prosecutors say neither an informant’s identity nor their information will be shared with other police teams or Sierra Leone’s authorities.
Leijdekkers, who also uses the name Omar Sheriff in Sierra Leone, has been sentenced to a combined 103 years in prison by Dutch and Belgian courts.
In June 2024, a Rotterdam court sentenced him to 24 years for six cocaine shipments totalling almost seven tonnes, an armed robbery in Finland and commissioning a murder. His Belgian sentences total another 79 years.
Police continue to investigate other crimes in which he is suspected of involvement.
The increased reward comes amid a diplomatic dispute over efforts to bring him to justice.
Dutch authorities say Leijdekkers is in a relationship with the daughter of Sierra Leone’s president, Julius Maada Bio.
Justice Minister David van Weel said last month that the European Union had withheld €18million in budget support because of Sierra Leone’s refusal to hand him over.
Sierra Leone’s leaders dispute that explanation, saying the funding delays reflect procedural issues rather than the extradition dispute.
Leijdekkers has denied involvement in drug trafficking through his lawyers.
Who is Bolle Jos’?
He is accused of running a vast international cocaine empire noted for its torture, disappearances, political corruption, and laundering gold via African dictatorships.
Born in 1991 in Breda, in the Netherlands, Leijdekkers grew up surrounded by vice. His father, a known figure in the underworld, allegedly handed him a network of criminal logistics that stretched from Rotterdam’s container yards to Antwerp’s docks.
By his mid-20s, Bolle Jos had scaled those shadows into a cocaine empire, building ties with narco royalty including Ridouan Taghi, Piet Costa, and cartel figures in Colombia, Spain, and Turkey.
From his €3,000-a-night pad in Puerto Banus, Marbella’s pleasure dome, he allegedly played broker between Latin America and Europe’s glittering elite.
Violence as a business model
Dutch authorities say Leijdekkers oversaw the movement of over 7,000 kilos of cocaine in just one year, grossing €70–170 million per month.
In 2020, his gang reportedly assaulted a transport firm in Finland, not realising it was a legitimate operation. He’s also linked to at least one execution – and a disappearance that still haunts the Netherlands.
Naima Jillal, a female Moroccan trafficker linked to the Costa del Sol clans, vanished in Amsterdam in 2019.
Images later pulled from encrypted phones show a woman – bound, tortured, mutilated – in what many investigators believe is a digital tomb. Authorities are convinced that Leijdekkers ordered the killing.
They also found a torture chamber in an old shipping container that was allegedly used to grill, maim and kill the gangland enemies.
The network of rooms was allegedly constructed by a drug gang led by Roger P., alias ‘Piet Costa’.
Bolle Jos is said to have operated as an elite broker and close ally to Piet Costa and other top cartel leaders like Ridouan Taghi.
This interconnected criminal network utilised the facilities to interrogate, extort, and eliminate rival gang members over missing cocaine shipments and financial disputes, it is alleged.
Romance, regime ties, and a private airstrip in Sierra Leone
In January 2025, a shock video surfaced showing Leijdekkers laughing and lounging at a private event in Sierra Leone, seated beside Agnes Bio, the daughter of the country’s president. The footage was published – incredibly – by First Lady Fatima Bio herself.
The Dutchman was the romantic partner of the president’s daughter, protected by military convoys and operating from private airstrips. European intelligence agencies now say Sierra Leone has become a new narco corridor, with cocaine disguised as legal goods sailing from West Africa to Europe.
The corruption runs so deep, officials allege, that a diplomatic car stuffed with cash and drugs was intercepted – driven by the ambassador’s chauffeur.
Most wanted, but still moving
Leijdekkers has been officially listed as one of Europe’s most wanted criminals since 2022.
In early 2025, Dutch authorities released new images and a composite sketch, warning the public: his appearance has changed, he uses fake documents, and he should not be approached.
