Efforts to Rescue Children Recruited by Drug Gangs: Haruun's Mission to Save Them

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Watch Dateline’s latest episode from the Netherlands on 17 June at 9.30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand.

Every day, Haruun Yussuf Sharif takes a walk around one of the Netherland’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Immerloo is in the eastern Dutch city of Arnhem, where drug-related crime rates are almost twice the national average. It’s in this multicultural community of social housing blocks where organised crime networks recruit young people to sell drugs. 

Haruun understands the criminal world more than most and wants to deter vulnerable youth away from that life, as part of a government-funded street coach program.

“I come from a harsh environment,” he told Dateline. “I learned to keep it simple, straight and never talk about my emotions, what I had to deal with.”

He says helping young people has given him a new lease on life.

“When I started this job, I learned a lot about myself and I learned to speak about my problems but also speak about things that I had to deal with, because I saw that it helped the youth understand themselves better.”

Three men stand in front of two teenagers with blurred-out faces sitting on a bench. The man on the right is wearing a beige raincoat, while two other men are wearing black parkas and black baseball caps

Haruun (left) and Mustafa (centre) work for a government-funded street coach program that aims to deter vulnerable young people from getting involved with organised crime. Source: SBS / Will Reid

Haruun doesn’t want to seem like the police or authorities. Along with his colleague Mustafa, he engages in casual banter with the local youth about where they’ve been and where they’re going in an attempt to build their trust.

One day, two teens sitting on a bench started opening up to the men.

“There are so many drug dealers here,” one boy told them. “Young people, from 12 years old. I will see it maybe five times a week, young people dealing.”

A harsh upbringing

It was a mystery homemade bomb thrown into the foyer of his youth boarding house that launched Haruun into a life of crime over a decade ago.

Born in Somalia, Haruun moved to the Netherlands in his early teens on a protection visa. Without his family, he moved from sponsor to sponsor before ending up in the boarding house with other boys his age.

Smartphone screen showing a chat listing drug names and prices in euros

Drug dealing has been taking place over encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram and Snapchat. Source: SBS / Will Reid

“I never met my dad when I was a child. He left at the age of two. My mum had eight kids. She had to raise them by herself. Four of them got killed back in Africa,” he said.

Haruun said he never learned who attacked his home that night, but felt that no one around him – Dutch authorities, teachers, police – cared to find out. He said he felt abandoned in his adopted homeland.

Being an unaccompanied minor, his life had already intersected with shadier elements in the Netherlands. But this event launched him headfirst into a new world.

“Criminals saw me as a vulnerable kid who was looking for love and was scared of nothing … they put me under their shoulders and that’s how I got introduced to the street,” he said.

Haruun spent most of his youth in crime, battling addiction and spending four months in jail. He eventually turned his life around and found himself in a rehab clinic, where he learned about the street coach program.

This steady job and clear purpose has helped him stay on the straight and narrow.

Dutch drugs policy

The Netherlands is famous for its liberal drug policies but over the last decade, there’s been a booming black market and a rise in violence linked to the drug trade, including shootouts, bombings and murders in broad daylight.

In 2021, Dutch investigative journalist and crime reporter Peter Rudolf de Vries was assassinated on an Amsterdam street.

A middle aged man with gray hair wearing a blue shirt

Prominent Dutch crime reporter and presenter Peter R. de Vries was shot in the head in July 2021 and died several days later in a hospital. Three years later, a Dutch court sentenced three men to 28 years in prison for his murder. Source: Getty / BSR Entertainment/Gentle Look

In 2024, drug-related crimes in the Netherlands hit a record high of over 14,000 cases. Much of the violence stems from a web of rival gangs operating in the Netherlands, known collectively as the Mocro Maffia.

The problem has caused shifts in public opinion and political allegiances.

The far-right Freedom Party (PVV), which pulled out of the right-leaning coalition, leading to the government’s collapse earlier this month, blames the problem on high levels of immigration.

PVV leader Geert Wilders had called for 10,000 more police, harsher punishments and the power to sentence kids aged 14+ as adults for serious crimes.

As the hard right doubles down on the war on drugs, progressive parties are pushing for less criminalisation of the hard drugs trade and more regulation.

Haruun says youth involvement in drug crime is not driven by ethnicity but by poverty and lack of opportunity.

“In my opinion, what the government is doing wrong is putting all the migrants in one corner by saying they’re all like that.”

Youth at the centre of violent crime

To dodge prosecution, criminals exploit children and teenagers.

Under Dutch juvenile law, if a child gets caught, the maximum sentence is two years — no matter how serious the crime.

Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, says minors now show up in 70 per cent of Europe’s black markets — from drugs to trafficking, cybercrime and hired violence.

One teenage boy hanging out in the carpark of an apartment complex in Immerloo says young people are pulled into the drug world via commonly used encrypted messaging apps, like Snapchat.

“They usually start with buying drugs and then they see how much it costs and that it generates so much money. And then they want to do it on their own…

“It mostly goes via Snapchat. You just add some dealers and you chat and make a deal.”

Close-up shot of two men in police uniforms, showing only their torsos. The one of the left is holding a white envelope with printed text on it and a small piece of paper

Stefan shows a ‘pony pack’ — a small, folded paper packet usually containing cocaine. They are being left by drug dealers in residential areas. Source: SBS / Will Reid

The Snapchat messaging app enables dealers to make contact without being traced because chats are removed immediately, or within 24 hours.

No corner is safe

The drug trade is not just impacting the poorest areas of the country; it’s also flourishing in wealthy, seemingly safe communities like Alphen, 30 minutes’ drive from Rotterdam, the second-largest city in the Netherlands.

Community police officers Stefan van Ellinkhuizen and Rudy Dubbeldam are regularly on patrol, speaking to street informants and raiding known drug drop spots.

One social housing complex where young children play can house dozens of empty ‘pony packs’ — small, folded paper packets usually containing either half a gram or a full gram of cocaine, MDMA or ketamine.

“In the past, we had people who were 18, 19, 20 years old. Now we see drug dealers who are 14, 15, and 16 years old,” Rudy said.

Two men in police uniforms stand with their arms crossed over their chests

Community police officers Stefan van Ellinkhuizen and Rudy Dubbeldam say that drug dealers are getting younger. Source: SBS / Will Reid

Stefan says there are unmistakable signs of minors being recruited into the illicit trade.

“If a young boy, a minor suddenly has a very nice pair of shoes, a new jacket, and I know mum and dad don’t have a job … how is he getting those nice clothes?

“And then we start as community police officers to find out what he is doing. Where does he get the money from?”

Many of the pony packs the pair find are empty, but the sheer number of them speaks volumes.

They’re a silent reminder that the cocaine trade is thriving in this nation — on people’s doorsteps and in plain sight.

Yet solutions remain out of reach.