Alleged Drug Kingpin Skips Trial After Dubai Extradition, Faces 12-Year Sentence

In detention at Dendermonde prison since his extradition in March 2024, Nordin El Hajjioui informed the Antwerp court on Wednesday morning of his absence from the hearing for medical reasons. His lawyers, Hans Rieder and Louis De Groote, were also conspicuously absent. The prosecutor requested a sentence of twelve years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros against the defendant, considered the leader of a criminal gang specializing in cocaine and heavy weapons trafficking, active between 2019 and 2020. The court will deliver its verdict on June 24.

Conversations between the Moroccan-born criminal and his co-defendants, already sentenced to heavy prison terms at the end of 2024, via the encrypted messaging app Sky ECC, were intercepted. In these exchanges, the acronym NWA, meaning "Never Work Again," which is allegedly Dikke Nordin’s nickname, frequently appeared. During a video interrogation from Dubai in 2021, the defendant denied any involvement in this case and claimed to have never used the Sky ECC application.

According to the prosecution, El Hajjioui is also allegedly the mastermind behind several acts of violence in the drug world. Before flying to Dubai via the Netherlands about ten years ago, the young resident of the Antwerp district of Dam had been convicted of drug trafficking. In the fall, Dikke Nordin will have to appear in several other cases related to drug trafficking.