A Dutch drugs trafficker shot dead outside a gym in Mexico city last week is believed to have been killed by members of the Sinaloa drugs cartel, with whom he had developed close ties.
Police sources in Mexico and the Netherlands say cartel bosses appear to have discovered that Marco Ebben (32) was under surveillance by a specialist narcotics unit linked to the Mexican navy – and decided to silence him before his arrest.
Detectives had established Ebben’s daily routine and planned to arrest him as he left the Sports World gym in the wealthy district of Altizapān de Zaragoza and walked alone to his armoured vehicle in the nearby car park.
That plan appears to have been leaked to the cartel, however.
In the minutes before the planned arrest, three gunmen converged on the Dutchman – known in the Mexican underworld as “El Holandēs” – and shot him dead. Some local media reports said he died following “a gun battle”.
According to a spokesperson for Mexico’s secretariat of the navy, the timing of the attack left little doubt that Ebben’s former cartel associates had turned on him.
“Someone in the organisation must have realised he was being watched and that an arrest was imminent.
“His knowledge of cartel operations, of European drugs and arms trafficking routes, and of the people involved on both sides of the world made him an unacceptable liability if he were to talk.”
Others in the Mexican criminal world appeared to suspect that Ebben had already agreed to talk and that the arrest was planned.
[ Guns and grenades betray Antwerp’s struggles with rising cocaine tradeOpens in new window ]
An investigator in the Netherlands who wished to remain anonymous was quoted as commenting: “They executed him quickly and efficiently, like someone who had outlived his usefulness.”
Ebben had been on the Europe’s Most Wanted list issued by Europol since he disappeared from the Netherlands in 2019 after being sentenced to seven years in jail for trafficking 400kg of cocaine from Brazil to the Netherlands.
At the same trial, Ebben’s father, who also disappeared, was sentenced to 11 years for bribing a customs official.
Since then, Ebben is known to have lived in Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Turkey and then Mexico, where he settled and established an association with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada (77), who ran the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Both are now in US custody.
Ebben’s connections to Zambada are believed to date to 2012, when he was introduced to Sinaloa cartel leaders by Jose Rodrigo Arechiga Gamboa.
His unique value to the cartel was that he had worked with many of the main players in European drugs and arms trafficking and could identify them.
