Former Brunssum mayor Luc Winants hopes the alleged members of the Parkstad gang will soon be behind bars. Winants was one of the people who brought down the gang.

In his role as mayor, he worked with the judiciary to dismantle the gang, whose heart was in Brunssum.

Serious crimes

Speaking with 1Limburg, Winants looks back on the investigation. "We were incredibly well prepared. A situation arose where I had new cases on my desk every day. We began to recognize recurring cases. So the image of a gang literally emerged on the desk. There really is an organized gang," the former mayor is clear. "We are talking about very serious crimes here."

Rapid intervention

Because of the age of the alleged gang members, most of whom are in their twenties, Winants hopes they will be punished quickly. "In my view, these are just kids. And kids fall back into old behavior pretty quickly. So I think they should be punished quickly, under the right guidance. You can see that some of them have already gone back into the wrong when they were released."

A lot of confidence

Attorney Sjoerd van Berge Henegouwen takes a different view of the case. In the case of his clients, his firm represents four defendants, he does not consider it proven that it is a criminal organization. "I see that accusation with confidence. They are relatives of each other and in every family there is a lot of organizing that has to be done to put food on the table. So yes, an organization. In Dutch, that's called 'family.' It does not prove that this is criminal activity."