Former professional football player and ex-international David Mendes da Silva is not only suspected of smuggling cocaine, but also of bribing Schiphol employees and employees of the container transport company Hamburg Süd in the port of Rotterdam. He paid them bribes, according to the prosecutor. This is what the prosecutor said in court in Rotterdam on Monday.
The former professional footballer was arrested in early August on his 40th birthday in an investigation into narcotics. He is initially suspected of importing three batches of cocaine, a total of 1584 kilos.
On Monday, a new suspicion was added. The Public Prosecution Service is also prosecuting him for preparatory acts for the importation of drugs. The Public Prosecution Service says it has decrypted messages from the hacked messaging service Sky ECC. According to the OM, Mendes da Silva participated in group chats about drug imports. He denies that. According to the Public Prosecution Service, he also offered employees of Schiphol or a company working at Schiphol money in exchange for information.
Hacked ‘cryptophones’
The lawyer asks the court to lift his client’s pre-trial detention. He wants the court in this case to wait for the answers from the Supreme Court on whether hacked ‘crypto phones’ may be used as evidence. The Public Prosecution Service opposes this and wants to deal with the substance of the case next spring.
Mendes da Silva made his debut in Sparta in 2000. The born Rotterdammer with Cape Verdean roots then played for Ajax, NAC Breda, AZ, Red Bull Salzburg and Panathinaikos and ended his career at Sparta in 2017 at the age of 34. With AZ he celebrated the national title in the Netherlands in 2009, at Red Bull Salzburg he took the Austrian ‘double’. He made his debut with the Orange in February 2007 in the match against Russia. Mendes da Silva played seven times for the Dutch national team.
Source: ANP
