Dutch police arrested six men after discovering cargo containers that had been converted into a makeshift prison and soundproofed “torture chamber” complete with a dentist’s chair and tools, including pliers, scalpels and handcuffs, a high-ranking officer announced on Tuesday.
Authorities said that police conducted the raid before the torture chamber could be used and alerted potential victims, who went into hiding.
The discovery was made last month by officers investigating leads generated by data from encrypted smartphones used by criminals.
The communications network has been cracked by French police, and detectives in Britain and the Netherlands have arrested hundreds of suspects based on the messages.
Tuesday’s announcement gave a chilling insight into the increasingly violent Dutch criminal underworld, which is involved in the large scale production and trafficking of drugs.
Dutch police last week said that their investigations, codenamed 26Lemont, based on millions of messages from the EncroChat smartphones, had led to the arrest of more than 100 suspects, the seizure of more than 8,000kg of cocaine and 1,200kg of crystal methamphetamine, and the dismantling of 19 synthetic drugs labs and seizure of dozens of firearms.
On June 22, Dutch police arrested six men on suspicion of crimes, including preparing kidnappings and serious assault.
Detectives also discovered the seven converted cargo containers in a warehouse in Wouwse Plantage, a small village in the country’s southwest, close to the border with Belgium, a statement released on Tuesday said.
They were tipped off by messages from an EncroChat smartphone, including photographs of the container and a dentist’s chair, with belts attached to the arm and foot supports.
The messages called the warehouse the “treatment room” and the “ebi,” a reference to a top security Dutch prison.
The messages also revealed the identities of potential victims, who were warned and went into hiding, police said.
Video released by the police showed a heavily armed arrest team blasting open a door at the warehouse and discovering the improvised prison.
Another armed team detained a suspect in Rotterdam.
“Six of the containers were intended as cells in which people could be tied up and one container was intended as a torture chamber,” Dutch National Criminal Investigation Service head Andy Kraag said in a video released by police, adding that the police operation “prevented a number of violent crimes.”
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