Born in Palma in September 1997, Sami Bekal Bounouare moved to Rotterdam with his family when he was 13. In November 2023, a Spanish politician, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, was shot in the face in Madrid by a would-be assassin. Sami Bekal Bounouare is believed to have masterminded the assassination attempt. Europol has offered a €50,000 reward for him.
Also known as 'Pacho', he became a prominent figure in the Dutch underworld. Aged 27, he has a history of drug trafficking and is said to have strong ties to the Italian mafia and the Mocro Maffia, a powerful network of criminals of Moroccan origin that has become one of the most feared in Europe.
The attempted assassination of Vidal-Quadras was in retaliation for his support of the Iranian opposition in exile. The security forces believe that Pacho arranged for Meherz Ayari to travel to Spain in August 2023; he was the hitman. In addition, he provided vehicles and money to those involved in the plot and negotiated the purchase of the weapon that was used.
As well as this, a judge in the Netherlands has evidence that he was behind the murder of an Iraqi citizen in 2021 and an attempted murder in June last year.
By that time, he was no longer in Spain - he lived in Granada. Arrests were made after the assassination attempt, but Pacho escaped first to Morocco, then Qatar, Brazil, Colombia and finally Turkey, from where he crossed into Iran.