Wouter Laumans & Marijn Schrijver
MOCRO MAFFIA
Prologue
Amsterdam is preparing for a dull New Year’s Eve. It is 29 December 2012 and the sale of fireworks has taken off. In the narrow streets of the working class neighbourhood Staastliedenbuurt in the western part of Amsterdam, now and then a bang can be heard, but there is almost no-one about. A black Range Rover drives through the neighbourhood. Behind the wheel of the four wheel drive is 21-year old Said el Yazidi. He is the youngest person in the car; a happy kid with a lot of friends. The boys, whose families come from the Rif Mountains, sometimes tease Said with his alleged stinginess. He is a “Susi” — a South Moroccan. His family comes from around the city of Ouarzazate.
Next to him in the car is his friend, 28-year old Youssef Lhkorf. He is a genial Ajax fan who is always game for a practical joke. It is typical that he often jokingly introduces himself as “Peter”. He lives in the eastern part of the centre of Amsterdam, next to the Maritime Museum. He can often be found out on the streets. When he shows his face at squares in the neighbourhood in summer, kids gather around him because they know there might be a chance of an ice cream. He comes from big family with twelve kids and spends a lot of time with his younger brother, Omar, who is six years his junior. In the predominantly white neighbourhood, the inseparable brothers are known as “Ant and Deck”.
He is studying to be an accountant but actually wants to become a social sciences teacher. This is why he will start a new course in two months. In the meantime he drives the cab of one of his brothers and works as a courier. And he has also recently been working at a restaurant in the city centre. He has been in trouble with the police before. Well, who hasn’t? There was a conflict between police officers and some local boys. Youssef tried to calm the situation down and was taken to the police station. Within two hours he was back on the streets again.
On the back seat of the Range Rover is 28-year old Benaouf. The barge is registered in his half-sister’s name. Even though Benaouf was born in Leeuwarden, in the Northern Dutch province of Friesland, his family lives down south, in Eindhoven. Not so long ago, he divorced after a two year marriage. But the handsome Benaouf has had no shortage of female attention since.
Nobody really notices the car when it turns into the residential area. The people in this neighbourhood do not think anything of it when some young Moroccans drive around in a big fat four wheel car with a listed value of almost 80,000 pounds.
The Range Rover drives through the small streets. The houses all look the same. At night it is like a maze. Finally, the car pulls up in the Schaepmanstraat and the passengers get out.
Benaouft has arranged to meet a Moroccan boy here. Together, they walk through the neigbourhood for a while, talking. At first, everything seems fine. But then the foursome arrive at the corner of the Van Rappardstraat and the Van Bossepad. There, Benaouf, in his own words, suddenly sees two men rushing toward him. And then, out of nowhere, there is the sound of a revving engine and screeching tyres. A car comes roaring towards the men. For a millisecond, time stands still.
A heartbeat later, the adrenaline is rushing through the boys’ bodies, and their survival instincts kick in. By then, the death squadron has opened fire with a deafening noise. Benaouf, Said and Youssef with all their might, sprint to a safe place while the shooters chase after them in their stolen Audi Quattro RS4. This car was a huge favourite among gangsters for really big jobs. Then a second car turns up: a black Volkswagen Golf GTI 5. In a panick, Youssef and Said run into the Van Bossestraat, the fastest route back to the Range Rover. That is a fatal error. The street is wide enough for their attackers and it is impossible to escape from the super fast car on foot. Shoots from the machine guns echo through the streets, just like the sound of breaking glass. In their thirst for blood, the men even shoot through their own windscreen. They open fire on Youssef and he collapses in front of a row of doors, fatally hit. He has only managed to cover a few yards.
Said is faster and flies across a square where cars cannot come. Youssef’s killers have to take a turn. They lose sight of Said for a moment, and he sprints to the four wheel drive via this short cut. He does not think straight anymore, jumps behind the wheel and he reverses the car with screeching tyres. He hits something and smashes the back of the Range Rover. He changes gear and accelerates, but before he can drive off, out of nowhere the Audi Quattro appears in front of him.
The driver of the Audi has driven around the square. He has arrived just in time to stop the fleeing Range Rover. And he is not very subtle about it. The cars collide head-on. Said is trapped. A neighbour, who looks out of the window upon hearing all the noise, sees two men get out of the Audi with their Kalashnikovs at the ready. He dives to the ground when they open fire at the Range Rover. The windscreen of the four wheel drive is riddled with bullet holes within minutes.
Surprisingly, Said gets off scot-free again. He opens the door of the Range Rover and runs for his life. Now he flees into another part of the Van Bossestraat.
The two shooters remain where they are, with their AK-47’s at the ready. They are facing the Van Bossepad, a pathway along the water that runs parallel with the Van Bossestraat. That is the pathway that Benaouf disappeared in a moment ago. The shooters seem to wait if he will come out and run toward the Range Rover too.
When that does not happen, the murder squad jumps back into the car and goes after Said. It does not take long before they have overtaken him. One of the shooters is hanging out of the window and fires several rounds. This time he does not miss. Said collapses on a street corner, about 100 yards from the Range Rover. Witnesses see how his masked executioner gets out of the car and shoots several more bullets at Said’s body at close range. The boy is left on the street lifeless, his body twisted in a strange position. Then the killers race off at full throttle.
“It was weird. I look out of my window and see firing machine guns sticking out of car and a boy running away fast” , a local woman tweets. When the smoke has cleared, the Range Rover is still standing where Said began his last sprint, its lights still flashing. There are nine bullet holes in the windscreen. The bullet-riddled car will later become the iconic image of these brutal killings and the surrounding conflict. The streets are strewn with cartridges.
The cracking sound of machine guns and screeching tyres have led to a huge panic in the neighbourhood. The incident room of the Amsterdam police has been inundated with calls about the shooting from 10.30 pm onwards. Cars, and also houses haven been hit by flying bullets. A wall of a child’s bedroom in one of the houseboats, too, has been hit. The missile has gone right through the wood. It soon becomes clear that it is a miracle there are not more victims.
By now, dozens of local residents have left their homes and are out on the streets. Initially, most of them thought the sounds they heard were fireworks. But when they realised the bangs seemed to be moving around the neighbourhood, they decided to look of the window. Some people saw how the two boys were butchered.
A female police officer who is the first to arrive at the scene, sees the scale of the violence and Said’s dead body. She is completely panic-stricken. Like a fishwife she screams orders at the neighbours. But they find it incomprehensible that Said does not receive first aid. He may be saved yet.
A motorcycle officer, who has actually ended his shift that night, rushes toward the scene with a fellow officer. Along the way they hear over the radio that automatic weapons may have been used. They understand there will be a lot of police officers in the Staatsliedenbuurt and decide to station themselves 1,5 mile further along a busy road (the Haarlemmerweg) to look out for the getaway car. And low and behold, they see an Audi driving by. Instinctively they know that is their car. The car is in a hurry. One of the motorcycle officers has to accelerate to 90 miles an hour in order to keep up with the target. He switches on his flashlights and sirens. At the next junction, another motorcycle officer arrives. When the Audi arrives at the traffic lights, his brake lights light up. The first motorcycle officer slowly drives around the other cars waiting in front of the traffic lights.
When the second officer arrives, he sees the barrel of a gun sticking out of the Audi’s window. There is no warning, and shots are fired straight away. The second officer goes down and the barrel turns to his colleague. Again, a volley of shots. The officer who is behind the Audi can feel the bullets whizzing past. In a split second he falls to the ground and pulls his motorcycle on top of him. Now it’s my turn, he thinks. He sees how the Audi accelerates and then brakes. Again, shots are fired. This time the rounds bounce off the road. Shooting back is not an option for the officers. They know they are no match for the men shooting at them. Over the radio, a message can be heard that will give every officer the shivers: “Officer down! Officer down!”
In the meantime, the killers have left the crime scene in a hurry. The death squad’s silver grey Audi is now driving at great speed in the direction of the town of Haarlem. The two police officers can hardly believe they are unharmed. They take off their motorcycle clothing and check each other for possible gunshot wounds. Meanwhile a sea of flashlights can be seen approaching fast via the Haarlemmerweg. One of the officers who have been shot at, wants to pursue the shooters again. His fellow officers pull the key from the lock of his motorbike and put him in a van.
The passengers of the Audi seem to be in a panic. It takes too long; they need to dump the car. The police helicopter that criminals on the run fear so much is now hovering in the air, but the shooters are lucky. With all the chaos that has ensued, the chopper first goes after the other Audi. They hit the gas and drive to the edge of the neighbourhood of Geuzenveld. They cannot go into the area, since there is a police officer on every street corner. Whole streets have been cordoned off. It feels like a war has broken out.
They see a police car approaching in the back mirror. It seems that the shooters, still driving, are throwing their weapons into a ditch. Two AK-47s and two Glock and Colt pistols. A witness sees how the killers leave their car behind near a sports park. Normally, people who carry out liquidations set fire to their cars in order to eliminate all traces. These killers fail to do so, and the police car is closing in on them. They sprint away just in time. The police arrive only seconds too late and the killers get away.
The Golf is nowhere to be seen again that night. Two days later, the burning car is found around the corner from where the Audi was left behind.
The Moroccan underworld has given off its business card. The shooting in the Staatsliedenbuurt causes shock waves through the entire country. The mayor of Amsterdam, Eberhard van der Laan, who is quite used to revenge killings in the criminal world by now, is clearly shocked. “This was the Wild West”, he says the following day.
For more information about Wouter Laumans, Marijn Schrijver and MOCRO MAFFIA please visit the Lebowski Agency website.
