The vessel’s stated destination was Benghazi, Libya. Its actual cargo told a different story. When Spain’s Civil Guard intercepted the merchant ship Arconian in international waters near the Canary Islands on Friday, its hold was, in the words of investigators, completely stuffed packed with an estimated 35 to 40 tonnes of cocaine in what authorities are describing as a national record seizure and one of the largest drug busts ever recorded at sea anywhere in the world.
Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told reporters in Madrid that the seizure was “one of the biggest, not only nationally but internationally.” A court order has placed the investigation under legal secrecy, limiting official confirmation of the precise quantities involved, but sources from the Civil Guard’s main AUGC union described it as a historic operation.
The detail that lands with particular force in Freetown is this: the boat had left Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown, bound for Benghazi in Libya, though the pattern of previous such operations suggests it was due to offload onto smaller vessels for European distribution, because the unloading of that volume of cocaine in Libya, investigators noted, did not make much sense.
The vessel, sailing under the Comoros flag, was escorted into the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with all 23 crew members primarily Filipino and Angolan nationals detained. Early estimates place the haul at between 30,000 and 45,000 kilograms, potentially making it the largest cocaine seizure ever recorded at sea in history.
The ship’s departure from Freetown is not an isolated data point. It lands in the middle of a story that has been building for over a year a story with a Dutch fugitive, a presidential family, and a West African capital at its centre.
One of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, convicted cocaine smuggler Jos Leijdekkers, has found refuge and high-level protection in Sierra Leone, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter, as well as photos and video footage reviewed by Reuters. Leijdekkers, who is Dutch, was sentenced in absentia to 24 years in prison by a Rotterdam court in June 2024 for smuggling more than 7 tonnes of cocaine.
For several years, Leijdekkers moved through Freetown under the guise of the name Omar Sheriff, successfully according to investigators corrupting state power to make way for his cocaine-trafficking empire. His presence in Sierra Leone became publicly undeniable through an unlikely source: the Sierra Leone First Lady’s own social media.
The revelation came when First Lady Fatima Jabbe-Bio’s social media team livestreamed a New Year’s church service. As President Bio entered St Joseph’s Catholic Church in his hometown of Tihun in southern Sierra Leone, a balding white man in an off-white kaftan entered the frame behind him sitting two rows back, next to a woman identified by three separate sources as Agnes Bio, the President’s daughter. It was Leijdekkers. He appeared unfazed by the cameras, maintaining eye contact with the lens at several points.
Three sources told Reuters the woman was indeed the President’s daughter Agnes, and that Leijdekkers was married to her. Reuters could not independently confirm the relationship. Agnes Bio did not respond to requests for comment.
The political fallout was immediate and unresolved. Sierra Leone’s Sierra Leone Telegraph described the allegation that Jos Leijdekkers is the son-in-law of President Bio as a very serious claim requiring immediate clarification from the President himself, noting that the photos of the Dutch criminal seated alongside the President’s daughter and other close family members provided circumstantial evidence sufficient to suggest a relationship between the Bio family and one of Europe’s most dangerous convicted criminals.
The scale of Leijdekkers’ alleged criminal enterprise places him in a category that goes well beyond a single smuggling operation. Dutch prosecutors are seeking to confiscate a record $253 million in illegal assets from Leijdekkers, representing proceeds from cocaine trafficking as well as purchases of gold and luxury items. He is thought to have made 114 million euros from 14 cocaine shipments over less than a year, and also spent 47 million euros on 975 kilograms of gold over less than six months.
Reports indicate that Leijdekkers has impregnated Agnes Bio, a development that could grant him stronger legal protection in Sierra Leone and complicate Dutch efforts to secure his arrest. Opposition politician Mohamed Kamarainba Mansaray has described the fugitive as “a drug baron who is destroying an entire country,” alleging that Leijdekkers has built strong relationships with government officials using bribes and investments to secure protection.
Europol, which lists Leijdekkers as one of its most wanted fugitives and has offered over $225,000 for information leading to his arrest, describes him as “one of the key players in international cocaine trafficking.” He is also believed to be connected to the disappearance of a Dutch woman, Naima Jillal, who went missing in 2019 after getting into a car in Amsterdam.
Dutch prosecutors have made clear the urgency of his return. Their spokesman has stated publicly that bringing Leijdekkers to the Netherlands to serve his sentence is “the highest priority.”
The Arconian seizure did not emerge from a vacuum. Spain’s close ties with Latin America and its proximity to Morocco, a top cannabis producer, make it a key entry point for drugs into Europe. But the trail increasingly points westward to the Atlantic coast of West Africa, and specifically to Sierra Leone. International law enforcement officials have described Sierra Leone as a transshipment point for large volumes of Latin American cocaine headed to Europe. Members of a UK-based crime group were imprisoned for attempting to smuggle 1.3 tonnes of cocaine worth £140 million into the UK from Sierra Leone a case investigators said they could not link to Leijdekkers, though the overlap in geography could not be ignored.
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The questions that now surround Sierra Leone’s government are not small ones. A record-breaking cocaine shipment departs Freetown waters. Europe’s most wanted drug trafficker is allegedly living in Freetown under the protection of a presidential family connection. And a government that has staked considerable political capital on an anti-corruption brand has yet to offer a satisfactory public accounting of how any of this came to pass.
The hold of the Arconian was, investigators said, completely stuffed. So, it appears, is Sierra Leone’s unanswered question of what exactly has been growing in Freetown while the world was not watching.
