On the Navy’s chronometer, 840 seconds was the difference between one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world, the Dutchman Marco Ebben, being killed instead of being detained by the police of Atizapán, State of Mexico, who belong to the Armed Forces of Mexico.
Who was Marco Ebben, the supposed operator of ‘El Mayo’ who posed as a DEA agent?
A criminal commando – it is still not known how – got ahead of the operation that the municipal authorities began last year, when they discovered that Ebben had come from Europe to Mexico to reinforce the war of ‘La Mayiza’ against ‘La Chapiza’, in Sinaloa, and had settled in the Rancho San Juan neighborhood.
Ebben was no ordinary target: he was wanted in 196 countries and had a pending sentence of seven years and four months in prison for drug trafficking between Brazil and the Netherlands, a sentence that was imposed when 400 kilos of cocaine were discovered hidden in pineapples in 2015, a shipment managed by Marco and his father.
His reputation was that of one of the heavyweights of international crime, with partners on five continents of the world.
At 32 years old, he belonged to an opaque community in organized crime, the ‘brokers’, that is, high-flying freelance operators at the service of the richest mafias in the world who offer themselves for all kinds of complex missions: to navigate new routes for illicit trafficking, to close million-dollar deals on the other side of the world by eliminating the language barrier, to acquire cutting-edge arsenal and even to open bank accounts in tax havens impervious to any scrutiny.
The Dutchman used all his skills to become one of the most sought-after brokers in the world: he mastered at least seven languages; he had relatives connected to the richest Russian clans in the world and he had studied international business in Europe, according to an Interpol investigation.
The Russian, Albanian, Bulgarian and Italian mafia, as well as Chinese triads, New Zealand gangs and cartels in America were among his satisfied clients who gave him a reputation for violence and efficiency.
El Chino Ántrax brought him closer to El Mayo
For at least eight years, Ebben had been an operator for the Sinaloa Cartel, especially for the faction of Ismael El Mayo Zambada. The same Interpol file that details the Dutchman’s long resume shows that the connection between the European and the septuagenarian Sinaloa drug trafficker began thanks to José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa, El Chino Ántrax, whose job was to look after the armed wing run by El Mayo and his sons, such as El Mayito Flaco.
Aréchiga Gamboa liked to travel the world in luxury under the pretext of finding partners for the cartel. His Instagram account —still public— is a record of his leisure and business trips to France, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and the Netherlands, among other nations. In the latter, he met traffickers close to Ebben sometime between 2012 and 2013.
After consulting with his boss, El Mayo, the Dutchmen became arms suppliers for the Sinaloa Cartel, as well as facilitators of investment opportunities in European countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, where the important seaports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg are located. Containers with illicit goods enter and leave through there every day.
The relationship became so close that, in December 2013, El Chino Ántrax traveled to Amsterdam to spend New Year’s and oversee business in the Netherlands, but was arrested minutes after landing at Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport.
He was later extradited to the United States, from where he escaped to return to Mexico, his last stop before being killed in Culiacán.
His execution did not diminish the relationship with the Dutch and the Mayo Zambada faction. On the contrary: without the intermediary, the figure of Ebben emerged, to such a degree that he traveled, on at least two occasions, to Culiacán, Sinaloa, to personally meet his partners and have a better understanding of the needs of his clients.
After all, Ebben was both a criminal and a businessman.
He posed as a DEA agent
Ebben had many versions with which he concealed his own truth. On the afternoon of his murder, when he fell between his armored Cadillac Escalade and a neighbor’s vehicle, the Atizapán police found two false identifications: a DEA anti-drug agency card and a voter ID issued by the National Electoral Institute (INE). On both, he presented himself as Jesús Antonio Velásquez Rivas.
Before, El Holandés had already tried several identities: in Russia he presented himself as part of the diplomatic corps of the European Parliament; in Turkey as a private security businessman; in Brazil, as a special agent of Europol, the same corporation that was looking for him for trafficking 400 kilos of cocaine in boxes of pineapples.
Even, following the example of several international bosses — in Mexico, for example, Nazario Moreno González, founder of the Los Caballeros Templarios cartel, tried it — he faked his death in the hope that his search would go cold.
Ebben’s “murder” supposedly occurred on September 22 in Culiacán, Sinaloa—on day 13 of the “Sinaloa war”—where a shootout between ‘Mayiza’ and ‘Chapitos’ “resulted” in a gunshot to his head.
Ebben had been in the Mexican Pacific for a few days, summoned by the followers of Mayo Zambada to help them win the armed conflict against the sons of Chapo Guzmán. It was an expensive acquisition, but one that would guarantee good results: with El Holandés on their side, they believed, high-level weaponry was assured.
In reality, the “broker” had only been slightly injured in the shootout, but the false news of his death opened an opportunity for him to find a new position from which to influence the war.
So he let influencers, such as rapper Djaga Djaga, mourn his death—even though there was no photo of the corpse or official confirmation—and fled Sinaloa to reinforce his lie.
And of all the places to take refuge, he chose Atizapán, in the State of Mexico, one of the municipalities with the richest neighborhoods in the country, where he could camouflage himself as a successful businessman. From there, on the outskirts of Mexico City, he would continue his operations to help ‘La Mayiza’.
There was only one problem: Atizapán is one of the few municipalities in Mexico where the municipal police is made up of the Navy. And not by ordinary sailors, but by an elite group specialized in sweeping away organized crime.
“They killed him to prevent him from being interrogated”
Like almost every day, Ebben was scheduled to go to the Sports World gym in Zona Esmeralda on the afternoon of February 13, just a few meters from his house in the Real Antigua subdivision, Rancho San Juan neighborhood. It was a routine perfectly studied by the marines who were following his trail.
Thursday would be the day of the operation to arrest him. One before the busy Valentine’s Day. However, 14 minutes before going for Ebben, three hitmen got ahead of the marines and killed the Dutchman before getting into his truck. He was left lying in the parking lot wearing sportswear.
“Apparently, someone found out that the Armed Forces were after this guy. It is not yet known how this wiretapping occurred, but my impression is that they killed him to prevent him from being interrogated and from telling everything he knows,” said a source close to the Europol investigations.
“This version makes sense, if one looks at how he was killed. They killed him as if he were any criminal, when he was a ‘heavyweight.’ I believe that the killers were people he trusted and that is why he did not have time to defend himself. People who knew him and who knew his secrets,” he adds.
With Ebben killed, the marines concentrated on dismantling his inner circle: four bodyguards were arrested, ages ranging from 21 to 33 years old; two are ex-military, one is an ex-marine and the other is a civilian. All of them are from Chilpancingo and Atoyac de Álvarez, Guerrero, a stronghold of the Beltrán Leyva splinter groups, which before 2008 belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel with El Mayo at the head of the organization.
Between Ebben’s home and another safe house in the municipality, the marines found an arsenal: high-powered rifles, .380 and 9 millimeter caliber weapons, combat axes, knives, ammunition, ballistic vests, helmets with Kevlar armor, camouflage clothing and cash.
Marco Ebben, El Holandés, the “broker” of the millionaire criminals, has now been murdered. With his death, his secrets about the “war in Sinaloa” go with him.
Source: milenio
