In a nondescript industrial estate on the edge of Amsterdam, two sleek black cars pull up in front of a court house guarded by heavily armed police.

The people inside have their faces covered almost completely by balaclavas, but you can see apprehension in their eyes as they pass. One of the vehicles hastens into a small garage on the side of the building and the doors shut quickly behind them. The other drives on.

The unidentifiable passengers were arriving at "The Bunker," a high-security facility near Schipol Airport where three men, including notorious organized crime boss Ridouan Taghi, were sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday in one of the biggest criminal cases the Netherlands has ever seen.

Prosecutors in the Marengo trial, named after a judicial code word for the operation, successfully argued that the trio, as leaders of a criminal gang, had ordered or coordinated a string of six murders plus other attempted or planned killings between 2015 and 2017. A further 14 men were convicted with jail time ranging between almost two and 29 years, bringing a six-year trial riddled with twists and turns to a close.

Taghi, 46, once the Netherlands' most-wanted fugitive, was extradited from Dubai in 2019 for the trial. Police previously said he was part of a "super cartel," at one point controlling a third of the European cocaine trade that was subject to a major international sting operation coordinated by Europol in late 2022.

Looming over Taghi's trial are three further deaths that shook Dutch society: the 2021 shooting of celebrity crime reporter Peter R. De Vries, the 2019 killing of lawyer Derk Wiersum and the 2018 killing of........

© Deutsche Welle