Dutch authorities are offering a record €2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Jos Leijdekkers, a convicted cocaine trafficker believed to be hiding in Sierra Leone.
The sum is 10 times the previous reward and reflects what prosecutors and police described as their highest priority. Information provided to the Dutch Public Prosecution Service will be kept secret.
Leijdekkers, 35, is also known as “Bolle Jos”, or “Chubby Jos”. Dutch police consider him one of the key figures in the international cocaine trade.
A court in Rotterdam sentenced him in absentia in 2024 to 24 years in prison over cocaine shipments totalling almost 7,000kg, an armed robbery and ordering a “liquidation”. He has also been sentenced to 79 years in prison in Belgium.
Jos Leijdekkers and Sierra Leone
Dutch authorities said in January 2025 that they were “absolutely certain” Leijdekkers was in Sierra Leone, where images have emerged appearing to show him alongside senior officials.
Speculation over his links to the country grew after Sierra Leone’s first lady, Fatima Bio, posted photographs and a video from a religious service attended by President Julius Maada Bio. A man strongly resembling Leijdekkers appears in the material.
The suspected cocaine trafficker is also believed to have been involved in the disappearance and death of Naima Jillal, who went missing in 2019 after getting into a car in Amsterdam.
Europol said intercepted messages allegedly indicated that Leijdekkers “played an important role in Jillal’s disappearance”. Photographs of a woman believed to be Jillal were later found on a phone seized during the Marengo investigation.
“The photos show that she was most likely tortured and is probably no longer alive,” Europol said.
