The trial of a total of 105 suspected members of the Clan Y drug gang has got under way at the Criminal Court in Antwerp. The accused are standing trial for a long list of offences. The trial follows a long investigation that got under way in 2017. The investigation revealed how criminals involved in drugs attempted to infiltrate municipal public services, the police, the port of Antwerp and even the Church. Prosecutors are requesting sentences of 15 years for the leading figures in the gang.
The gang is called “Clan Y" due to the surname of many of the accused having Y as its first letter. The family is an Assyrian Turkish family. 47 of the 100 accused are members of the family. During the investigation the former politician Melikan Kucam came up with relation to fraud involving humanitarian visas. The former Mechelen city councillor was convicted just over 2 years ago.
The gang is now being tried for a series of serious offences, including importing narcotics, money laundering, extortion and corruption. The prosecutor’s office alleges that all these offience can be linked to Clan Y. This is alleged to be a group consisting of 4 families lead by the fathers and the oldest sons of the families concerned.
The chief suspect in the case wasn’t in court on Monday. He is currently in Turkey and is being represented by his lawyer. The prosecutor’s office has requested a sentence of 15 years for the man. Lawyer John Maes says "My client is believed to have led the organision for a certain time, but he strongly denies this. We are demanding his acquittal”.
Central to the investigation was Quay 1700, a highly “drug-sensitive” dock at the port of Antwerp. A member of the Y family held an important position at a company operating at the dock. According to detectives, it was thanks to him that Clan Y was able to acquire a near-monopoly on extracting cocaine from containers on Quay 1700. At the peak of its activity, the gang is said to have earned around 12 million euro a year.
A second defendants, the cousin of the man mentioned above shot at in 2017 while he was walking his dog. Everything points the shooting being drug related.
Infiltration
A total of 61 million euro in ill-gotten gains was allegedly accrued. The investigation also uncovered how the gang allegedly tried to infiltrate public services, the police and even the Church.
For instance, two police officers are on trial for allegedly having allowed themselves to be bribed to look up information for the gang. A clerk working at Antwerp City Council’s registrar’s department was also caught red-handed forging identity documents. Some bank employees are also on trial.
Another of the defendants is the kickboxer Jamal Ben Saddik. His name has appeared in previously drug investigations.
Trial will go on until May
The trial will take several months to complete. It will be May at the earliest before all the evidence has been heard.