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Authorities in Dubai have extradited to Belgium a suspected drug trafficker with an extensive property portfolio in the emirate and a years-long record of suspected involvement in transnational organized crime.
Othman El Ballouti, a resident of Antwerp, was detained by Dubai Police along with two other Belgian nationals, Mathias Akyazli and George Kim, the Dubai Media Office said in a statement.
The three were handed over to Belgian authorities for their alleged involvement in crimes including “forming a dangerous gang, trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, robbery, and human trafficking,” the office said.
Ballouti had been on Belgian authorities’ wanted list for several years over his suspected role in large-scale cocaine smuggling operations. In 2023, he and his brother, Younes El Ballouti, were sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly operating a major cocaine trafficking network, led by Othman, that supplies cocaine to Europe.Â
According to the sanctions, the network’s supply chain extended to South America and was supported by money-laundering operations involving businesses based in China. Younes Ballouti, the younger brother, was sentenced in absentia in Belgium in 2023 to eight years in prison for international drug trafficking.
Othman lived for years freely in the emirate and amassed a portfolio of luxury properties reportedly worth millions of dollars.Â
An investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), part of the Dubai Unlocked project, revealed that he purchased at least 13 properties in Dubai between 2013 and 2015. These included ten apartments and three villas, with a total purchase value of approximately €8.5 million.
From 2014 onward, five of those apartments and two villas were rented out with the assistance of local real estate agents, generating at least €360,000 in rental income over several years.
Among the properties were two units in a development called Marina Gate, both of which were sold in 2019. Ownership records reviewed by OCCRP indicate that another member of the Ballouti family is currently listed as the owner of those units.
El Ballouti’s extradition is the latest in a series of handovers by Dubai Police, who recently extradited a suspected drug trafficker, identified as Mohamed A., believed to be the right-hand man of Youssef Ben Azza, another trafficker currently residing in Morocco. In June the Emirati authorities also extradited Abdelkader Bouguettaia, a French-Algerian citizen, under an Interpol red notice. He is suspected of organizing a 2020 operation that smuggled 2.5 tons of cocaine from Cartagena, Colombia, to the French port of Le Havre.