Sierra Leone: Tracking a drug kingpin

**Ed Butler** (0:01)
Hi there, I'm Ed Butler, and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. Today we're back in Sierra Leone in the second of two programmes looking at the emergence of a major drugs dealer in one of West Africa's poorest nations.

**Florence Kata** (0:15)
We are seeing Jos Leijdekkers, him being around, flouting around. But according to the police, they do not have any record of him.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:26)
The world's cocaine trade is bigger than it's ever been.
Now with more cocaine comes more money. And some of that money is being used to purchase protection.

**Ed Butler** (0:38)
Despite denials from the president's family, law enforcement agencies say Jos Leijdekkers, a wanted criminal, is now enjoying privileged status in Sierra Leone.
What's going on? That's Business Daily from the BBC.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (0:53)
I think it was January 2025
He made like front page news on my country, the Netherlands. Jos Leijdekkers, the biggest drug criminal of our country living in Sierra Leone. I called my foreign vets and I said, well, maybe we should go there.

**Ed Butler** (1:10)
That's Sophie Van Leeuwen. She's a Dutch TV Africa reporter with NTL News. In 2025, she went to discover how come a wanted fugitive appeared to be living openly in the capital, Freetown.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (1:23)
I went to a press conference. This was one of the first things I did. And just before, the Dutch asked Sierra Leone to extradite Jos Leijdekkers. This was news.
So I asked, what about him? Where is he? Are you protecting him? He said it was Cernoba, the Minister of Information. He said, we take it very seriously, and we have our own investigation.

**Ed Butler** (1:49)
With her fixer, a local journalist called Joseph Tore, she decided to drive the next day to the area south of the capital, where Jos Leijdekkers was reported to be living. This is Sophie and Joseph's account of what happened next.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (2:05)
So we go by car and we put like a press sign on the window to be very transparent about what we are doing there.

**Joseph Tore** (2:13)
We met a police roadblock.
They were searching everybody who was passing. And policemen, secret service police officers, I would call them, they were in civil clothes. They were waiting for us.

**Ed Butler** (2:26)
That's unusual for Freetown, right?

**Joseph Tore** (2:29)
Unusual, like, who are you people? So, where are you from? Then Sophie said, I'm from the Netherlands. We are watching a journalist.
Then the man just whispered to his colleagues, like, to say, we've got her. This is the person we are looking for.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (2:44)
But then someone started screaming.
And then the chief said, well, this is a special security situation, whatever that meant. We turned the car around, and we are escorted by a truck full of armed men through the city of Freetown to the Criminal Investigation Department.

**Joseph Tore** (3:07)
You cannot imagine how I felt at that moment. I was so nervous behind the steering. You know, the sirens.

**Heel Timmermans** (3:14)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

**Joseph Tore** (3:17)
There was a motorbike in front, the police motorbike, to clear the way, as if they were carrying the president. I felt like hell was losing over me.

**Abdel Kaghbo** (3:26)
That was the point I felt.

**Joseph Tore** (3:29)
They assassinated the media in Sierra Leone.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (3:32)
When we got there, I got out. I was surrounded by people, like if I was a movie star, and I lost Joseph, my colleague.

**Joseph Tore** (3:42)
I just abandoned my vicula and I escaped.

**Ed Butler** (3:45)
You ran?

**Joseph Tore** (3:46)
Yes. It was like any jack reaction, if you want to call it that way. I was in Freetown for a few days, hiding. Police were raiding my house. All my staff, my colleagues, they all had abandoned the office. Some have gone into ID.
You know, I saw myself in hell.
Then I fled the country.

**Ed Butler** (4:09)
Meanwhile Sophie van Luwen remained in police custody, held for days without any formal charge.

**Sophie van Leeuwen** (4:16)
They questioned me for about 15 hours, maybe 7 hours the first day, and same thing the second day.
They wanted to know who did you call before you arrived in Sierra Leone? Who are your sources? Who did you work with? They treated me as a spy, basically. And they took my phone, they took my laptop, so they could read everything I did on those devices. And also they didn't really give me food, so I did feel weakened after a while. And well, maybe more scared, you know, because you start to wonder, will I get out? Got a bit messed up, I think.