Faissal Taghi held his first public hearing on Friday in the secure room of the Schiphol court.

Suspected of participating in a criminal organization, Taghi’s eldest son is also accused of international drug trafficking and laundering drug money.

Faissal, who was extradited to Holland last summer, just turned 24 a week ago.

He arrived in Rotterdam on a heavily guarded private jet on July 26, after being arrested a year earlier outside a shopping center in Dubai.

On Friday afternoon he appeared in public for the first time, dressed in a white shirt, sand-colored pants and white sneakers.

According to a report by the news site AD.nl, his family supported him in the public gallery, as the prosecutor insisted that “son Faissal is considered his father’s successor both inside and outside the criminal organization.”

Prosecutors claim he belonged to the criminal group that had planned to help his father escape from the Extra Secure Institution (EBI) high-security prison in Vught.

Taghi’s father, who had managed to smuggle messages out of prison through his lawyer and cousin Youssef Taghi, was preparing for a violent escape.

According to the plot, this would be done with the help of ‘navy seals’ or by kidnapping four EBI employees who could serve as bargaining chips.

The list of accusations against Taghi Jr., nicknamed ‘Genio’, includes a series of drug shipments, for a total of more than 1,000 kilos of cocaine.

He has also been linked to the transport of 224 kilos of cocaine to Valencia, which were hidden in the fuselage of a dismantled helicopter.

Another 400 blocks of coke would have arrived in the same Spanish port city, while a shipment of approximately 350 kilos passed through the French port of Le Havre. Antwerp and Rotterdam were also considered destinations.

According to AD.nl, the evidence in the case largely consists of hacked messages from four different Sky phones, which have been traced to Faissal Taghi.

“These conversations give the impression that he is the man who manages the assets of the Taghi family, even more than the violence and drug trafficking,” the news site reports.

“According to prosecutors, it is certain that it was Faissal who was hiding behind those nicknames,” the report added.

“The content of the conversations shows a large number of personal references to birthdays, the mention of ‘dad’ when it appears to be Ridouan Taghi, and images in which Faissal Taghi himself can be seen.”

Investigators suspect the drug money was invested in hair salons and real estate projects in Dubai, as well as a Bentley Bentayga that was given to another brother as a birthday present.

He is also linked to money transfers brought from Italy to Holland for a total of more than five million euros.

Faissal, who addressed the court, criticized the conditions under which he is being held at the Vught EBI.

Although he was initially isolated, he is now in a cell with two other people, where he will be “behind the door for 22 hours.”

“It feels like being buried alive,” he told the court. “I have to shower behind glass and under supervision.”

He said he suddenly went from living his life in Dubai to being completely isolated in the Extra Secure Institution.

“If I had another last name, things would have been different,” he insisted.

The full hearing of the case is expected to begin in mid-2025.

The gang’s boss, Ridouan Taghi, once headed one of Europe’s largest drug gangs and has been responsible for a wave of murders in the Netherlands.

He was arrested in Dubai at the end of 2019 and put on a plane to the Netherlands shortly after.

In February, a judge imposed a life sentence on the crime boss in the Marengo murder trial.

Taghi and his accomplices had been charged with six murders, four attempted murders, and plans to murder several more.

Taghi was described as the “undisputed leader” of a “murderous organization.”

Taghi is considered the head of a Dutch-Moroccan drug gang, known as Mocro Maffia, which controlled a large part of the cocaine trade in Europe.

He is a close associate of Daniel Kinahan and is believed to have worked together to obtain shipments of cocaine from South America.

It was reported earlier this month that Taghi was believed to be one of eight EBI prisoners taking part in a hunger strike over “inhumane detention conditions” in the high-security unit.