The palm-fringed resort of Two Seasons on Tokeh Beach in Sierra Leone offers privacy, seclusion and plenty of accommodation for a retinue of staff and security.
The mountains behind are topped with lush tropical greenery, and to the west, there’s only the Atlantic, next-stop South America.
Everything, in fact, that a fugitive drugs kingpin with a price on his head could ask for.
But Dutch cocaine baron Jos Leijdekkers, 35, has found a lot more to his taste in this deeply corrupt nation than the clutch of upmarket beach villas he now calls home.
Since the dramatic arrest of ‘cartel leader’ Daniel Kinahan in Dubai earlier this month – and his extradition to face charges in Ireland – the mantle of ‘world’s most wanted ‘drug smuggler’ has now passed to Leijdekker along with increased global interest in how he is hiding out.
Remarkably, he is believed to be married to the daughter of Sierra Leone’s president, and the couple are said to have a child together.
Leijdekkers, now officially the world’s most wanted man, is said to glide on the 20-minute drive between Tokeh and the capital Freetown in a blacked-out Mercedes, escorted by his own motorcade, whose armed members may or may not be in the employ of the government.
For the past few years Liejdekkers has lived high on the hog in Sierra Leone, where he has been photographed both with the President’s daughter, Agnes Bio, 31, and on his own on the fringes of a nightclub brawl.
Dutch cocaine baron Jos Leijdekkers, 35, is now one of the world’s most wanted men and the Dutch authorities are desperate to bring him to justice
But Mr Liejdekkers is safely out of reach for the Dutch law enforcement and living with impunity in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown
Mr Liejdekkers reportedly calls this home – the palm-fringed resort of Two Seasons on Tokeh Beach in Sierra Leone where he is understood to have purchased two villas
Mr Liejdekkers is believed to have been the brains behind this recent attempt to export £700million worth of cocaine into Spain on a freight ship called ‘Arconian’
He has adopted the pseudonym Omar Sheriff, but everyone knows him as ‘Bolle’ Jos (Dutch for chubby, though he has clearly toned up since that moniker was bestowed).
Though he may be on the run from the Dutch and Belgian authorities, who have sentenced him to more than 100 years in his absence, in the appropriately named Freetown, he apparently has nothing to fear.
But last week, news of a dramatic attempt to seize him by Dutch special forces in international waters emerged when he was believed to be planning a rare trip by sea to nearby Ivory Coast.
The top-secret mission was aborted twice at the 11th hour, whether because of a leak, or a change in Leijdekkers’ plans is not clear.
But it is no coincidence that he has chosen Sierra Leone to ‘hide out’ in plain sight.
The country is now a pivotal link in the international drugs trade between South America and Europe and some believe that under Mr Leijdekkers’ insidious influence, this former British Colony risks becoming a ‘narco state’ itself.
Now the Netherlands is intensifying its legal and political efforts to flush out Mr Leijdekkers from Sierra Leone, where he has become untouchable thanks to his seat at the top table.
The campaign to ‘Get Jos’ gained fresh impetus this May after Spain’s Civil Guard seized more than 30 tons of cocaine, the largest single seizure of the drug in history, from a cargo ship organised, police say, by Mr Leijdekkers himself.
The Comoros-flagged Arconian was intercepted in international waters after leaving Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital and biggest port, with an illicit drugs cargo worth an estimated £700million.
The ship was due to meet smaller speedboats at sea that would have distributed the drugs towards the Spanish coast in a delivery said to have been personally arranged by Mr Leijdekkers.
Guardia Civil Spanish police pulled up to the Arconian for cocaine seizure. The ship was due to meet smaller speedboats that would have distributed the drugs towards the Spanish coast
As well as vast amounts of drugs, weapons were also found by police on board the Arconian (pictured)
The plan was for smaller speedboats to meet the Arconian and take the cocaine in smaller shipments on to the Spain coast – before it was to be distributed more widely through Europe
Mr Leijdekkers, born in Holland, has close ties with drugs networks from all over the world, including the fearsome Kinahan cartel whose leader Daniel Kinahan has just been arrested
The Dutch government is now pressuring the European Union to threaten to cut off aid to beleaguered Sierra Leone to persuade its government to hand over the fugitive.
Mr Leijdekkers, born in Holland, has close ties with drugs networks from all over the world, including the newly leaderless Mr Kinahan cartel – after figurehead Daniel’s life of luxury in Dubai was dramatically curtailed by a police raid.
But the Dutchman – sentenced in his absence to more than 100 years in Holland and Belgium and a record fine of £82million for drug trafficking – need fear no such sanction from the government of Sierra Leone thanks to his close association with the President’s daughter Agnes – who enjoys her own diplomatic immunity as a United Nations representative of her father, President Julius Maada Bio’s government.
The couple were videoed sitting only two rows behind the President and first Lady, Fatima Maada Bio, Agnes’s stepmother in January 2025.
Leijdekkers raised eyebrows in Sierre Leone by attending a New Year’s church service with Agnes Bio (circled left) with Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone (circle right)
The Dutchman need fear no such sanction from the government of Sierra Leone thanks to his close association with the President’s daughter Agnes (pictured)
Several Bio family members and top government officials were at the New Year’s Day thanksgiving service in the President’s home village of Tihun, Southern Province.
Initial reports that the wanted criminal was seeing his daughter were denied by President Bio, who insisted he did not know Mr Leijdekkers.
The Mail approached the Sierra Leone government for comment.
Footage obtained by Dutch media also shows Mr Leijdekkers at a private birthday party in March 2024 for Alusine Kanneh, Sierra Leone’s immigration chief, where he presented a gift during the celebration.
US magazine New Lines discovered that Mr Leijdekkers had recently taken legal control of the villas at Two Seasons through a Lebanese business associate.
The article into Mr Leijdekkers’ life in Freetown painted a picture of a man frequenting nightclubs and casinos accompanied by his driver and bodyguards, always teetotal, but also flush with cash, bestowing tips of ‘$500 to $1,000 for all the staff each time he visited’.
Mr Leijdekkers is seemingly enjoying the high life in West Africa, having been seen with friends at a nightclub on the coast called Scarlet and getting into a row with revellers
Mr Leijdekkers is mixing in influential circles in Sierre Leone. Here he is at a private birthday party for Alusine Kanneh, the country’s immigration chief, presenting the politician with a gift
Such amounts are unheard of in Sierra Leone, where the average monthly wage hovers somewhere between $40 and $150.
Agnes Bio is a particular favourite of her father’s, who has promoted her career in the foreign service.
After serving as an ‘advisor’ in the foreign ministry, she is now accredited to Sierra Leone’s permanent mission to the UN in New York and is therefore immune from arrest or detention or having her bags searched on entry or exit from the United States.
In Freetown, the convicted Dutch criminal Mr Leijdekkers reportedly moves freely around with his own security detail and gave expensive imported 4x4s and limousines to several of the most influential ministers.
The extent of his influence in the former French colony is nothing short of chilling, according to local journalist Kandeh Sesay. In an interview with crime reporter John van den Heuvel, for Dutch newspaper Panorama.nl, Mr Sesay spoke of deep-rooted criminal influence extending to the highest echelons of government.
Mr Sesay, who reported on Mr Leijdekkers for years, eventually found himself forced to flee the country. He continues his investigative work from the United States because, he says that returning to Sierra Leone could be fatal.
The threats he received left nothing to the imagination: journalists were reportedly offered thousands of dollars to stop writing about the Dutchman. Those who refused were warned: shut up or die.
‘Leijdekkers is everywhere,’ says Mr Sesay. ‘From the president’s family to the immigration service and customs at the port. Wherever you look, he is the man calling the shots.’
According to the journalist, the cartel Leijdekkers is part of is so powerful that whistleblowers or troublesome journalists disappear without a second thought – through kidnapping, torture, or false accusations.
The alleged aftermath of the video clip of the nightclub brawl involving Mr Leijdekkers certainly lends weight to those threats.
In the footage a Lebanese reveller at Scarlet, a coastal club near Freetown, was apparently angry that Mr Leijdekkers and his entourage were being allowed to jump the queue snaking outside the nightspot on New Year’s Eve, 2023.
A fight erupted and the Lebanese, called Fawaz, smashed a bottle over one of Mr Leijdekkers’ bodyguard’s head.
Hours later, as Fawaz left the club, he was brutally attacked in the underground car park.
Seven shots rang out and Fawaz crumpled to the ground with both his kneecaps shattered.
Mr Leijdekkers – from the son of a sex club boss in Breda, Holland – comes from a criminal family. His elder brother Wilhelmus was arrested in Istanbul on cocaine trafficking charges
A police report said the bodyguard fired the shots but according to sources in the country, others believed Mr Leijdekkers himself was responsible.
Journalist Josef Skrdlik, based in west Africa, investigated Mr Leijdekkers and firmly tied him to the Arconian shipment.
He told the Mail: ‘Our investigation has linked the Arconian to two other similar voyages by small cargo vessels from Freetown to North Africa in recent years, both organised by Leijdekkers‘ network. All three vessels were previously owned and managed by companies headquartered at the same German address, and had the same ship safety manager in Turkey.
‘The two previous voyages were characterised by repeated loitering events near the Canary Islands, Morocco and Spain. Such activity may indicate potential drop-offs at sea, where cocaine is typically picked up by smaller boats and brought to shore. According to Spanish authorities, this is how the Arconian’s cargo was to be offloaded.
‘This modus operandi is becoming increasingly prominent in West Africa-Europe cocaine trafficking, and Leijdekkers’ network appears to be a major player.’
In May 2026, Mr Leijdekkers’ elder brother Wilhelmus was arrested in Istanbul on cocaine trafficking charges, and extradited to the Netherlands the following month.
Extraditing Leijdekkers to the Netherlands has proved to be virtually impossible.
There is no extradition treaty between the two countries and widespread corruption casts a shadow over any potential co-operation.
While the Netherlands attempts to recover millions and continues a global manhunt, the image is growing in Sierra Leone of a man who has entrenched himself deep in the political and economic infrastructure through power, money, and fear.
For the time being, ‘Bolle Jos’ seems untouchable, and some observers believe Sierra Leone is in danger of unwittingly being turned into a narco state.
Mr Leijdekkers’ tentacles stretch much further from his west African bolthole to Turkey and Dubai and his organisation’s turnover is estimated at up to £145million per month – or £1.7billion a year – by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.
His rise, from the pudgy son of a sex club boss in Breda, Holland, to one of the most influential ‘narcos’ in the world, appears to have relied on two factors – his uncanny ability to stay one step ahead of the law, and the ruthlessness with which he despatches anyone who dares cross him.
By 2019, he was operating at the centre of an international cocaine network moving consignments through the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp.
Intercepted Sky Encrochat messages gave investigators an extraordinary insight into the scale of the operation and, prosecutors say, Mr Leijdekkers’ position as one of its principal organisers.
Before fleeing to West Africa, he was operating at the centre of an international cocaine network moving consignments through the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. Here Belgian customs officers are pictured using a mobile scanner to inspect a container
He has adopted the pseudonym Omar Sheriff, but everyone knows him as ‘Bolle’ Jos (Dutch for chubby, though he has clearly toned up since that monicker was bestowed)
The Dutch police say the seven tons of cocaine involved in the case for which he was eventually convicted may have represented only a fraction of the drugs passing through his network.
And increasingly, violence became part of his business model.
In one case, a consignment intended for Finland ended up at a company with no connection to the drugs. Leijdekkers responded by sending men to recover it.
According to prosecutors, messages showed him directing his men to dominate the occupants, hold a driver at gunpoint and take control of the shipment. One employee was injured during the resulting robbery. A Rotterdam court later convicted Mr Leijdekkers of the offence and described the ease with which he organised violence as ‘almost frivolous’.
There were even more chilling allegations.
In early 2020, prosecutors said, Mr Leijdekkers commissioned the killing of Utrecht gym owner Robin van Ouwerkerk, offering €200,000 for the job.
Intercepted messages included the victim’s address and a photograph, according to Dutch reports. The planned assassination was never carried out, but the Rotterdam court convicted Mr Leijdekkers of ordering the murder.
His name has also been linked by Dutch investigators to the disappearance of Dutch-Moroccan Naima Jillal, a woman involved in the drugs world who vanished in Amsterdam in October 2019.
Police say encrypted communications indicated that Mr Leijdekkers had a role in her disappearance, while photographs recovered from a seized phone appeared to show a naked woman’s mutilated body whom investigators believe may have been Ms Jillal after she had been tortured.
She has never been found. Mr Leijdekkers has not been convicted over Ms Jillal’s disappearance, and the Dutch police continue to describe it as an investigation.
The most revealing evidence of Mr Leijdekkers’s rise may be found not in the streets but in the extraordinary quantities of money and valuables investigators say passed through his hands.
The Dutch Public Prosecution Service has calculated that he derived at least £190million in unlawful benefit from his criminal activities.
The investigation has uncovered evidence of a man who did not simply spend his drug profits on cars, watches and nightlife, but attempted to turn them into an international portfolio of assets including property.
According to prosecutors, encrypted communications revealed that Mr Leijdekkers bought an astonishing 975kg of gold, paying more than £40million for it in less than six months.
He is believed to own proerty in Sierra Leone, Turkey and Dubai where he apparently has a place at The Grandeur Residences, a six-storey block on The Palm Crescent, Palm Jumeirah
Mr Leijdekkers is said to glide on the 20-minute drive between Tokeh and the capital Freetown in a blacked-out Mercedes. Pictured, the Two Seasons in Tokeh Beach
The mountains behind are topped with lush tropical greenery, and to the west, there’s only the Atlantic, next-stop South America
Investigators also uncovered evidence concerning property, including an apartment at the luxury Vogue Hotel Supreme in Bodrum, Turkey.
Dutch police have long known that Mr Leijdekkers travelled between Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, and in 2023 investigators searched the homes and offices of members of his family after his parents and sister had travelled to Turkey, where they were suspected of having contact with him.
Cash was found in euros, Turkish lira, Swiss francs and UAE dirhams, alongside expensive watches, jewellery and designer handbags.
More recently, prosecutors have identified apartments in Dubai belonging to him and associates at the Grandeur Residences on the Palm Jumeirah, not far from a villa owned by David and Victoria Beckham.
Two Bentleys and a Rolls-Royce were also among assets allegedly connected to Mr Leijdekkers’s family.
The picture that emerges is of a fugitive who built not merely a drugs business but an elaborate financial infrastructure around it – moving between Turkey and Dubai, buying gold and property and surrounding himself and his family with luxury goods.
And while Dutch investigators have been trying to dismantle that empire from afar, Mr Leijdekkers has continued to enjoy the protection of distance.
His move to Sierra Leone appears to have taken him from the familiar world of European ports and criminal networks into something potentially far more valuable to a fugitive: a hiding place in plain sight where, despite his convictions and international notoriety, he can live openly in the very heart of the political elite.
Guy Weski, Mr Leijdekkers’s lawyer in Rotterdam, was approached for comment.
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