The leader of the Caloh Wagoh motorcycle gang Delano R is suspected of being behind the attempts made on the life of gym owner and torture chamber suspect Robin van O.

Van O, who was arrested following the discovery of a fully equipped torture chamber and a number of cells in Wouwse Plantage in Brabant last week, was mentioned on a ‘hit list’ which police found when they cracked encrypted messages kept by R.

Based on those messages, the prosecution service (OM) now believes Delano R plotted to have Van O killed between February 2018 and January  2018. His gym was repeatedly shot at.

R is currently on trial for being a member of a criminal organisation that offers its assassination services to the highest bidder. He and another 19 people, most of whom are also Caloh Wagoh members, are accused of organising 11 murders, 5 of which were executed.

The man who is suspected of ordering the killing is the Netherlands’ most notorious drugs criminal Ridouan Taghi, who was heard to say in a conversation with a Caloh Wagoh member that ‘the sport (Van O’s nickname – DN) lives there with a child’. Taghi was himself arrested in December last year and is now the main suspect in the Marengi trial.

The public prosecutor described the methods of Caloh Wagoh as ‘repulsive and unprecedented’. ‘We are confronted with many serious crimes but we have never seen killings to order on this scale,’ said a statement. ‘The contents of the chats are frankly shocking. People are treated as merchandise.’