Eighteen dead. That is the number prosecutors in the Netherlands say they can now prove. Not the 58 they once suspected.
Not the 27 they floated in 2025. Eighteen.
It is a narrow number, but a hard one. The public prosecution department told a court in Zwolle on Thursday that they have enough evidence to link those 18 deaths directly to substances bought from Funcaps, an online drug shop run by two Dutch men. The other 40 potential victims?
The evidence just was not there. Four more cases are still being checked.
This is what getting a conviction looks like in the shadow world of designer drugs. You do not need to prove every death. You need to prove enough.
Funcaps sold a menu of chemicals. Bromazolam, a sedative. O-DSMT, an opioid painkiller. 2F-ketamine, an anaesthetic.
The products came with no package inserts. No usage instructions.
Prosecutors say the site pushed sales with discount deals and sample packs. Buy more, risk more. The health risks were left to the customers.
The men behind it all are Jord van W, 31, and Stefan P, 30. They started selling fake pills in Belgium during the pandemic.
According to prosecutors, they were unclear about Belgian law. Unclear about exactly what they were selling. That lack of clarity, that carelessness, is now at the center of a criminal case that has grown far beyond a few counterfeit tablets.
A Belgian appeal court has already handed the pair prison terms of up to three years, with 18 months unconditional. Fines. Seizure of suspected proceeds.
That case is now before Belgium’s Court of Cassation. The Dutch case is separate, and it is bigger.
Funcaps is not an isolated operation. It is one of several fake-medicine and designer-drug businesses under scrutiny in the Netherlands. Prosecutors have recently traced part of this trade to chemicals imported from India.
The supply chain is global. The consequences are local, and they are fatal.
The key development here is that prosecutors can now stand up 18 deaths in court. That is a breakthrough. It means they have forensic links, toxicology reports, purchase records — enough to say, this person bought from this site and died from what they took.
That is not easy to prove. Designer drugs are made in batches, sold in powders and pellets, and the substances change fast. By the time a death is investigated, the exact chemical that killed someone may have been replaced by something similar but different.
Still, 18 is the number that matters. It is the number prosecutors will argue in court.
It is the number that turns a drug-selling case into a mass-death case. And it is a number that could grow. The four deaths still under examination could push it higher.
The 40 cases that were dropped for lack of hard evidence could be reopened if new information surfaces. For now, the case against Jord van W and Stefan P rests on those 18 deaths.
The men are already convicted in Belgium. The Netherlands is building its own case. The court heard the preliminary details on Thursday.
More hearings will follow. The families of the dead will be watching. So will the prosecutors in other countries who are chasing similar operations.
Funcaps sold drugs without instructions. Without warnings.
With discounts and sample packs. Eighteen people are dead because of it. That is the fact the prosecution now says it can prove.
