Ridouan Taghi (20-12-1977) is a Moroccan-Dutch criminal. Taghi gave orders for several murders, for which he and co-defendants were tried in the Marengo trial. In this trial, Taghi was sentenced to life imprisonment on 27 February 2024.
Youth
Taghi was born in Bni Selmane in the province of Chefchaouen, located in the Tangier-Tétouan region in northwestern Morocco and grew up with his family in Tétouan. Together with his parents, older brother and two sisters he came to Vianen in the Netherlands in 1980. There six more girls and a boy were born in the family later.
In the early 1990s, Taghi joined the Bad Boys youth gang. The Bad Boys were active at the Amsterdamsestraatweg in Utrecht and the City Plaza shopping centre in Nieuwegein. In 1992, Taghi was convicted for the first time for burglary and possession of weapons, among other things. At the age of 17, Taghi dropped out of his pre-university education in Nieuwegein.
Initially, Taghi was involved in smuggling hashish, but later he switched to smuggling cocaine.
From 2000 onwards, Taghi did not come into contact with the police for a long time. For a while, he ran a grill room on the Amsterdamsestraatweg in Utrecht. In 2009, he deregistered from the Personal Records Database.
Despite the previous convictions, Taghi remained out of the police’s picture for quite some time. He did come into the picture with the Spanish police for the liquidation of Mohammed Abdellaoui in 2013. He was also known as a major cocaine dealer. In addition, reports about Taghi were received by the Criminal Intelligence Team and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the police from 2013 onwards. The turning point, however, was when Ebrahim Buzhu filed a complaint against Taghi and his alleged right-hand man Saïd Razzouki in June 2015. Buzhu was said to be on Taghi’s hit list after he had helped kidnap a coffee shop owner in 2009, who was friends with Taghi.
In July 2015, two large weapons were found in the context of investigation 26Koper and a large group of men were arrested. Many of these men came from the same youth gang as Taghi. According to the Public Prosecution Service, PGP messages show that these men and the weapons found belong to the group around Taghi.
Liquidations
Early April 2016, criminal Naoufal F. was arrested in Dublin. With Richard R. and Taghi, he formed a trio, in which F. was mainly a hitman. For Taghi, this was the reason to propose to R. to liquidate public prosecutor Koos Plooij. Plooij was responsible for the prosecution of F. as well as an investigation into Taghi’s criminal organization. Richard R. rejected that idea: “Those are real thoughts, but no.”
In September 2015, spy shop employee Ronald Bakker was murdered. According to the Public Prosecution Service, because Bakker had passed on information about the Taghi group to the police.
On May 9, 2016, Abderrahim Belhadj was murdered. According to the Public Prosecution Service, Taghi had ordered his liquidation because Belhadj had allegedly stolen two blocks of cocaine.
In 2016, according to the Public Prosecution Service, Taghi ordered the liquidation of criminal Samir Erraghib. This took place on 22 June 2016 in IJsselstein. According to Taghi, Erraghib had talked about him.
According to the Public Prosecution Service, Taghi and Razzouki were looking for Buzhu because of his incriminating statements. When Buzhu proved difficult to find, they turned their attention to Ranko Scekic, a friend of Buzhu. On 22 June 2016, Scekic was murdered, a few days before Scekic was to testify in the criminal case 26Koper.
In June 2016, former criminal and crime blogger Martin Kok published on his website Vlinderscrime about two of Taghi’s accomplices. In July 2016, an attempt was made to liquidate Kok by placing a bomb under the car he was driving, but it was found in time. On 12 September of that same year, Kok wrote on his website about Taghi, Richard R. and Naoufal F.. On the afternoon of 8 December, another assassination attempt was made on Kok in Amsterdam-Zuid, but the shooter’s weapon jammed, without Kok realising it. That same evening, Kok was liquidated in Laren. According to the Public Prosecution Service, these liquidation attempts were ordered by Taghi.
On 12 January 2017, an attempt was made to liquidate Khalid H. Instead, flatmate Hakim Changachi was murdered. Two days after the liquidation, another attempt was made to liquidate Khalid H., but he managed to escape again. The later crown witness Nabil B. was involved in the first liquidation, in which Changachi was killed. Nabil B. was friends with Changachi’s family and therefore got into trouble between the family and Taghi’s group. Nabil B. therefore decided to go to the justice department and become a crown witness.
On January 31, 2017, Justin Jap Tjong was liquidated. On April 17, 2017, Farid Souhali was liquidated. On July 7, 2017, Jaïr Wessels was liquidated. According to the Public Prosecution Service, Taghi had given the order to motorcycle club Caloh Wagoh for this.
Since early 2016, Taghi had been in conflict with Mustapha F. In November 2017, an attempt was made to liquidate F. in Marrakesh. However, due to a blunder, the son of a Moroccan judge was murdered. Two shooters and a brother of Taghi have been convicted in Morocco for this murder. In addition, Taghi’s cousin and confidant Jaouad F. was also arrested in October 2021 for involvement. According to both the Dutch and Moroccan investigative services, Taghi had ordered this liquidation.
Arrest
Taghi was wanted for a long time and had been on the National Wanted List since March 2018. In November 2018, the Public Prosecution Service increased the reward for a golden tip that would lead to the arrest of Razzouki or Taghi to 100,000 euros, the highest amount up to that time.
On December 16, 2019, Taghi was arrested in Dubai. He had hidden in a villa. All the curtains were closed; acquaintances and accomplices came to bring daily necessities. By investigating internet data from this address and linking the information of the people who delivered groceries, Taghi’s identity could be established with certainty and a raid was organized by the Dubai police. This raid was said to have been peaceful. Taghi acknowledged his identity and indicated that he had entered Dubai with someone else’s passport. Later, Taghi wrote in a statement to the television program EenVandaag that he was severely beaten for days after his arrest by officers from Dubai and Morocco. “I was held in a room with freezing cold and treated with electric shocks.”
Three days later, according to the version of the Public Prosecution Service, he was transferred to the Netherlands as an undesirable alien on a charter flight at the request of the authorities in Dubai. He was locked up in the Extra Secure Institution (EBI) in Vught, which also serves as a detention center. His lawyer Inez Weski disputed the correctness of the procedure followed and stated that Taghi had in fact been kidnapped. In response, the Minister of Justice and Security, Grapperhaus, reported that everything had gone according to the rules. According to him, it was a decision by the local authorities in Dubai to deport Taghi from the country. There was said to be no indication of kidnapping. Taghi nevertheless filed a complaint against the Public Prosecution Service in April 2023 for inciting or preparing the alleged ‘kidnapping’ from Dubai, or even attempted murder. According to him, the Public Prosecution Service allegedly committed these criminal acts with the cooperation of the Commando Corps, the AIVD, MIVD and various military services. The Public Prosecution Service denies this.
Criminal cases: Marengo trial
In July 2019, a trial was started against seventeen suspects with Taghi as the main suspect. Taghi and his organization are suspected by the Public Prosecution Service of trafficking in cocaine, among other things, and are held responsible for a series of murders and attempted murders. Central to this trial are the statements of crown witness Nabil B.. A life sentence has been demanded against Taghi in this case.
Taghi’s lawyer in this trial was Inez Weski. On October 17, 2019, she announced that she was considering stopping Taghi’s defense, because she believed that the justice system was dragging its feet and that her client was therefore not getting a fair trial. On December 19, 2019, Weski announced that she would continue Taghi’s defense. On April 21, 2023, she was arrested on suspicion of participating in a criminal organization. Taghi is said to have used her to communicate with the outside world. She then resigned from Taghi’s defense. Taghi has not yet been able to find a replacement lawyer, whereupon Taghi indicated that he would conduct his own defense in the meantime.
In September 2021, Weski requested that Taghi’s case be split from the Marengo trial. This request was denied.
Liquidations
During the trial, three people around the crown witness were liquidated. The brother of the crown witness was murdered on March 29, 2019 after two failed attempts the day before. The murder took place six days after the announcement of the crown witness deal. According to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal, “it appears” that the murder was the result of the crown witness deal. Taghi was never charged for this, but within the “investigation” it was assumed that Taghi had given the order for this.
On September 18, 2019, Derk Wiersum, the lawyer of the crown witness, was also liquidated. Two shooters were sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder. In addition, three people are suspected of involvement by the Public Prosecution Service, including Jaoud F. and another cousin of Taghi.
Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries, who assisted the crown witness as a confidant, was murdered in Amsterdam on July 6, 2021. The Public Prosecution Service had already reported to De Vries in 2019 that he was on Taghi’s death list. Taghi denied that De Vries was on the death list and also denied involvement after the murder.
On January 15, 2022, the body of Ebrahim Buzhu was found near Cadiz. Buzhu died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Eris trial
Parallel to the Marengo trial, the Eris trial was also conducted. This trial focuses on five murders and another eleven plans for them. It concerns 21 suspects, mostly from the motorcycle club Caloh Wagoh. Just like the Marengo trial, a key witness Tony G. plays an important role here. The Public Prosecution Service suspects Taghi of having ordered three of those murders, namely those of Tjong, Wessels and Souhali. Despite the suspicions, Taghi himself will not be prosecuted in this trial, because the Public Prosecution Service expects that Taghi will already be given the maximum sentence in the Marengo trial.
Imprisonment and escape attempts
In 2020, Taghi appealed against the extension of his stay in the EBI, the most heavily guarded prison in the Netherlands, which was decided by the Minister for Legal Protection Sander Dekker. Taghi found the prison regime “inhumanely harsh”. The appeals committee of the Council for the Administration of Criminal Justice and Youth Protection (RSJ) decided that Taghi would not be transferred to another prison. Although there was insufficient evidence that there was an extreme risk of escape, there was “an unacceptable social risk” if Taghi were to escape after all.
In addition to Weski and two other lawyers, Taghi also had a cousin, Youssef, as a “media lawyer”. In February 2021, an investigation was started into Taghi’s ability to communicate with the outside world. For this purpose, the communication between Taghi and Youssef was eventually tapped with the permission of the examining magistrate. According to the Public Prosecution Service, this showed that Youssef was the link in the communication between Taghi and the outside world and that Taghi worked on escape attempts with Youssef’s help. Taghi had also given the order to “teach his brother-in-law a lesson”. On 8 December 2021, Youssef was arrested for this in the EBI in Vught. He was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison in early 2023. On 21 April 2023, Weski was also arrested for possibly passing on messages. A few days after her arrest, she resigned from Taghi’s defence. The suspicion against Weski is based on readable messages that have been sent via SkyECC, an encrypted messaging app that is widely used in criminal circles, since the arrest of her client Taghi in Dubai in 2019.
Conviction
On February 27, 2024, Taghi, together with two other suspects (Saïd R. and Mario R.), was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Amsterdam court. The verdict was delivered in the heavily secured court in Amsterdam-Osdorp, the Bunker.