He was convicted on c+caine trafficking charges by the District Court of Amsterdam on Wednesday. The court sentenced him to six years in prison. His co-defendant, Marylio V., was also convicted on the same charges, as well as money laundering. V. was also handed a six-year prison term.
Promes and V. played a “crucial, directing and coordinating role,” in cocaine smuggling, prosecutors argued. They were accused of organizing the delivery of two batches of c+caine, with a combined weight of over 1,350 kilograms.
The court specifically criticized Promes for flaunting wealth and trying to increase his prestige by making extra money through serious crime. According to the court, this is extra damaging because, as a professional footballer, Promes is a role model to many.
The court saw sufficient evidence that Promes played an important role in trafficking the two shipments of c+caine in early 2020. Evidence against him included messages on the encrypted messaging service Sky ECC, where Promes, using the name “Fantasma,” discussed payments and sending retrievers to the Antwerp port to retrieve the cocaine from containers.
Promes, 32, currently plays football for Spartak Moscow and has refused to return to the Netherlands for his trial and, thus, never made a statement about the offenses charged against him, according to NOS. His lawyers, Robert Malewicz and Sophie Hof, informed him of the verdict, and he immediately said he would appeal, according to NU.nl
serve nine years behind bars. “He seems to think he is untouchable in Russia or abroad” the prosecutor said. They wanted to know “how such a successful footballer allowed himself to be drawn so deeply into crime.”
The footballer and V., who are related to each other, were linked to drug shipments that arrived in January 2020 on a container ship that moored in the Port of Antwerp. Associates offloaded a 650- kilogram batch and brought it to a warehouse in near the port. The remaining batch of 712 kilograms was found on the same ship by Customs officials. Both consignments were hidden among bags of sea salt sent from Brazil.
Promes was alleged to have made a major financial investment in dr*g running. He and V. operated “under the radar” and worked “calculatingly,” convincing others to do lower-level, riskier work, like removing the cocaine from the port, prosecutors said. Primes was also connected to 55-year-old Piet W, an Almere man suspected of running a wide-ranging c+caine trafficking ring. He was also implicated in two street-level ag§assinations.
