A Dutch drug lord with links to retired Irish mob boss Christy Kinahan has been arrested for cocaine importation in Lebanon.
Robert Mink Kok (60), a well known veteran gangland criminal, was arrested at the request of the Dutch authorities, according to local reports.
Kok was arrested along with a 41-year-old man who is a suspected member of gangster Ridoun Taghi’s criminal network.
Read more: Couple try to break into Dublin Bus driver's cab after argument over buggy
Taghi is himself a named member of a so-called international “super cartel” of which mobster Daniel Kinahan is alleged to be a part of.
But Kok’s links to the Kinahan cartel span back many years — with him once being closely tied to Daniel’s father Christy — the ‘Dapper Don’.
According to the Dutch Prosecution Service, Kok is suspected of involvement in drug smuggling — following an extensive investigation which analysed crypto communications.
His arrest in Lebanon is in connection with a massive consignment of cocaine that was intercepted in the port of Antwerp in 2021.
In a press release the Prosecution Service stated the two men are suspected of involvement in shipping hundreds of kilos of cocaine to the Netherlands.
In particular, Kok is thought to be involved in smuggling the 370 kilos of cocaine which arrived in Europe hidden among a shipment of bananas in Antwerp in 2020, and was later seized in a German supermarket.
Kok was a key figure in the Amsterdam underworld in the 1990s and has served several jail sentences for trading in drugs and weapons.
He was also sentenced to a prison term in Lebanon for drug dealing and was released in 2016.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has now asked Lebanon to extradite both men.
Kok was most recently publicly linked to the Kinahan gang when it was claimed that slain gangster Gary Hutch was “mouthing off” about how the cartel had double crossed many of its associates — implying that that included him.
Read more: Man arrested and charged with murder of woman in north Dublin
Read more: Man assaulted by gang while cycling to Dublin mosque
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
