The European Commission has halted an upcoming tranche of budget support to Sierra Leone, sharpening a year-long diplomatic standoff over Freetown’s refusal to extradite Dutch drug trafficker Jos Leijdekkers, widely known by his nickname “Bolle Jos,” who has been convicted in absentia in the Netherlands and Belgium on cocaine-trafficking charges.

The decision, announced October 1, immediately freezes €18 million ($21 million) in EU budget support earmarked for Sierra Leone this year, money that had been intended for education, food programs and infrastructure. A further €22.5 million in Dutch-backed funding planned for 2027 is also now at risk if the standoff continues, according to Dutch news outlets DutchNews.nl and NLTimes.nl. The suspended funds are part of a broader €325 million EU grant package allocated to Sierra Leone for the 2021–2027 period.

Dutch Justice and Security Minister David van Weel, who pushed for the funding freeze and has lobbied fellow EU governments on the case, welcomed the move. “I am very pleased with this move. It is deeply galling that European Union funds are going to a country that refuses to cooperate with the extradition of someone like Bolle Jos,” van Weel said, according to NLTimes.nl. He added that Dutch authorities estimate Leijdekkers earns “hundreds of millions of euros per month in a country with a gross national product lower than his income,” warning that such wealth risks corrupting a small economy like Sierra Leone’s.

Leijdekkers was sentenced in absentia to 24 years in the Netherlands for smuggling more than seven tons of cocaine and was separately sentenced to 14 years in Belgium in a related cocaine case, bringing his combined sentences to roughly 80 years. Dutch authorities have accused him of building close ties to Sierra Leone’s political elite; reporting by the investigative outlet Follow the Money and other regional media has said Leijdekkers has a child with a daughter of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio. The dispute has also taken on a violent edge in Europe: an armed attack on a farm in Overasselt, in the Dutch province of Gelderland, killed a security guard last month in an incident Dutch authorities have linked to the drug trade.

Sierra Leone’s government has pushed back on the EU’s framing of the funding freeze. Information Minister Chernor Bah disputed that the suspension was tied to the extradition dispute, saying the European Commission told the government in July that payment delays were the result of “timing issues,” with the funds instead proposed for disbursement in 2027 and 2028.

The standoff leaves Sierra Leone, one of West Africa’s poorest nations and heavily reliant on donor support, facing the loss of tens of millions of euros in European assistance unless it moves to extradite Leijdekkers. Van Weel has also traveled to Ghana and Liberia to rally regional support and was expected to press fellow EU justice ministers meeting in Luxembourg to consider broader sanctions, including entry bans and asset freezes, against fugitives sheltering outside Europe. With Freetown maintaining there is no link between the aid delay and the fugitive case, the dispute shows no sign of resolution, and Sierra Leone risks losing the remaining 2027 EU allocation if the impasse persists.

Sources: DutchNews.nl, NLTimes.nl, OkayAfrica