German journalists and Dutch newspaper AD discovered that the powerful Italian crime group Ndrangheta is still using lorries that are transporting plants and flowers, for their drug trafficking activities. And crime groups are still trying to scam Dutch flower traders. Bart Weitjens is the director of AgroCheck. “It isn’t hard to hide something in a lorry filled with flower boxes.”
Drugs and flowers. Do they go together well?
“I have expressed myself in the media at some stage and said that plant and flower exports make an excellent vehicle for all sorts of other activities. Which activities exactly, I left open. Plant and flower exports are shipped throughout Europe, always on a tight schedule and in huge quantities. It’s very difficult to check that properly. A few Italians were arrested in 2015, it concerned large quantities of drugs that time. “It isn’t hard to hide something in a lorry filled with flower boxes.”
Is it just Italians?
“No, I don’t think so. Although Italy is an important destination, that has become clear. But we’ve noticed that there are things going on on Eastern European routes as well. We speak with exporters and we observe the flows of goods. Some exporters can no longer compete at normal prices. They’re being pushed out of the market by low-cost companies, which sell their plants and flowers at abnormally low prices. When we see that, we wonder if those companies are just selling flowers?”
Is it possible to eradicate these practices?
“Probably not, not totally anyway. We know that there are lots of drug labs in the south of the Netherlands, but that also seems to be difficult to stop. Maybe the police doesn’t have enough means and manpower to properly address this problem. When we speak with authorities, we get the impression that over the last couple of years, the attention for drugs problems and tax evasion in the flower trade has increased, though. Thousands of lorries leave the three big auctions every week to destinations all over Europe; that’s a substantial part of our economy.”
Are Dutch traders involved in drug trafficking?
“I don’t know, that’s hard to say. Most of them aren’t of course, but I wouldn’t count on all traders being innocent. It’s difficult with these razor-thin margins. The temptation can simply be too strong.”
And what about traders being scammed?
“This happens sometimes. Both by southern Europeans and by eastern Europeans. It isn’t hard. There’s no other place in the world that has such a large concentration of trade in one place, at such a high speed and with the same high level of competition. It’s tempting to take advantage of that. A new customer will place a few small orders, he’ll be all nice and friendly and pay up immediately, to show that you can trust him. And then, typically during a very busy time, he’ll get you by placing a large order that he’s never going to pay. This happens several times a year.”
Is there a way to prevent this?
“Exporters should do their homework. And AgroCheck tries to help exporters and protect them from scams like this. We’ve got a large database and we can make connections that others can’t make. Traders can get a credit report for €25, that’s only a small amount compared with the risk of being conned out of €50,000. There’s no way to prevent these things altogether, unless customers pay in advance, but that isn’t how things are done in the sector.”
FloraHolland’s response
We received the following response from FloraHolland with regards to the news about potential links between the plant and flower trade and drug trafficking. “We currently don’t have any reason to believe that there are people associated with a mafia group, who have ties to the flower auction in Aalsmeer”, is what FloraHolland said in their statement.
“Royal FloraHolland wants to be an honest marketplace, both for its members and for its customers”, says spokeswoman Judith Touw. “The criminal activities of two Italian brothers in 2015 took place in the grounds of the flower auction in Aalsmeer, but not on the actual auction floor. Unfortunately, some of our customers became the victims of that scam.”
It took nine months of preparations before the suspects of the criminal activities were arrested during a raid in 2015. Touw explains that Royal FloraHolland worked together with the Public Prosecution Service as well as with other investigation authorities. “Our own company investigator also played an important role in the collaboration.”
Touw: “Royal FloraHolland wants to make the floricultural industry more resilient against financial economic fraud and we’d like to share our knowledge with experts. That’s why we’re in ongoing consultation with the Public Prosecution Service (both the national office and the office for fraud and environmental crime) as well as with the police (national police force). We discuss things like screening of customers and new insights into monitoring and prevention. We currently don’t have any reason to believe that there are people associated with a mafia group, who have ties to the flower auction in Aalsmeer.”
