The No Limit Soldiers (NLS) is a crime group that started out as a neighborhood gang in the Caribbean nation of Curaçao, one of the four countries that comprise the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The organization’s leadership set up a cocaine trafficking route to the Netherlands in the early 2000s. The trafficking began with human couriers, but over time, the group developed the route to move larger quantities of drugs to the Netherlands and France. Later, many of the group’s senior members moved away from Curaçao and started working with foreign traffickers to ship large quantities of cocaine from South America to Europe.
However, with the arrests of its principal leaders, the group’s future looks uncertain.
History
The earliest reference to the NLS is a 2009 academic study that mentions “No Limit” and several other loosely organized groups that all have names taken from US music record companies.
Founded in Koraal Specht, a neighborhood in Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao, the group has a strong connection to its home turf, where most members grew up. Nonetheless, the NLS does not have territorial control over the neighborhood.
The NLS was one of many criminal youth groups in Curaçao, but grew in significance due to its ability to set up a cocaine smuggling route. By 2012, the NLS trafficked cocaine hidden inside airplane wings from Curaçao to the Netherlands, having corrupted airport personnel in both countries.
Several cases of open violence in the 2010s put the NLS in the spotlight of Curaçao authorities. In 2013, NLS members carried out a murder for hire that killed politician Helmin Wiels, without the permission or approval of the NLS leadership.
Then, in 2014, NLS hitmen killed a leader of rival gang Buena Vista City, Erwin “Djais” Juliana, and his cousin, Shantlé “Champi” Arnhem, in the middle of a crowded Hato Curaçao International Airport, wounding five bystanders.
Under pressure from Curaçao law enforcement and attracted by business opportunities elsewhere, many senior NLS members left Curaçao in the 2010s, moving to other countries in the region, including Sint Maarten, the Dominican Republic, and Brazil.
Since 2021, authorities in Curaçao, the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic, Dubai, and other countries have arrested multiple prominent NLS members including its two leaders. It is unclear what remains of the organization.
Leadership
Shurendy Quant and Urvin Wawoe were central in the NLS’ growth from a local youth group to a transnational drug trafficking network.
Shurendy Quant, alias “Tyson,” used his NLS contacts to traffic cocaine from the Caribbean to the Netherlands. In 2013, Dutch authorities arrested him for his alleged role in the smuggling of cocaine in airplane wings to the Netherlands the year before. He was released in January 2014 due to a lack of evidence.
He frequently visited Jamaica. He was arrested on the island with half a kilogram of marijuana in 2013, and court documents from the case state he had been visiting the country for over a decade.
In the years that followed his 2014 arrest, he managed to establish relationships with other drug traffickers, including Sérgio Roberto de Carvalho, one of Brazil’s biggest cocaine smugglers of the past decade. Court documents describe Quant as an international drug trafficker with a senior position in Carvalho’s organization.
In November 2020, Quant was arrested in Dubai, accused of ordering homicides, leading a criminal organization, money laundering, and kidnapping.
The organization’s second-in-command, Urvin Wawoe, alias “Nuto,” left Curaçao around 2008. He moved to Sint Maarten, where the NLS also became involved in drug trafficking, police sources told InSight Crime. Nuto’s girlfriend, Latoya Flanders, ran a car rental company on the island called True 2 True Car Rental, which was used to launder Nuto’s drug profits.
In 2012, Nuto was arrested and convicted for drug possession. He initially was incarcerated in Sint Maarten but was later transferred to the Netherlands after an attack by a rival group, the Jones Gang. Upon his release in 2016, he moved to the Dominican Republic. There, he registered two companies and produced several music videos under the name “Gangstamillio.” In April 2023, he was arrested again by Dominican authorities on charges including drug trafficking, arms trafficking, and contract killing. He was handed over to Dutch authorities in May 2024 to face trial.
In August 2022, the Court of First Instance of Curaçao sentenced four gang members, including Quant’s alleged right-hand man, to between 21 months and 14 years of imprisonment. Two of these sentences were appealed in early 2023.
In October 2024, Nuto Wawoe took part in a two-day hunger strike alongside Dutch-Morrocan drug trafficker Ridouan Taghi and several other high-profile inmates to protest the conditions in which they were being kept.
Apart from the arrests of Nuto Wawoe, Tyson Quant, Anthony Bhajan, and Chendal Rosa, other senior members were detained in the Caribbean, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
At least until their arrests, the No Limit Soldiers consisted of a hierarchical core organization led by Quant and Nuto. They were supported by a number of “lieutenants” or “soldiers” and a wider circle of affiliates, who usually act as independent contractors.
Geography
NLS members have been active in many different countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, including Colombia, Brazil, Panama, Jamaica, and Sint Maarten. They allied with some of the biggest crime groups in South America to traffic cocaine to Europe.
The NLS also has strong ties to the Netherlands. NLS members have been linked to stolen cocaine shipments and drug distribution in the Netherlands.
Allies and Enemies
Hacked documents from Colombia’s Prosecutor’s Office mention the NLS in relation to Colombia’s Gaitanistas (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC).
The documents allege that the NLS was connected to the Gaitanias by Curaçaoen Anthony Deo Rampersaud Bhajan, alias “Tony,” who was in direct contact with the then leader of the AGC, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, alias “Otoniel.”
Rampersaud Bhajan was extradited to Curaçao, where he was convicted to 5 years in prison in February 2024 for cocaine trafficking.
In Brazil, alleged NLS member Chendal Wilfrido Rosa was a cocaine broker who connected the Italian ‘Ndrangheta and Brazil’s First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC) until his arrest in Rio de Janeiro in November 2022, according to a report by Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor. He was arrested after paying an undercover police officer to export 1.75 tons of cocaine to Europe, and had previously participated in sending a ton of cocaine to the ports of Antwerp in Belgium and Valencia in Spain.
The NLS has been engaged in wars over stolen cocaine shipments with other criminal groups from Curaçao, mainly Buena Vista City. It also had a feud with the Jones Gang in Sint Maarten, whose leader Omar Jones ordered an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Nuto when he was in prison in Sint Maarten in 2014.
Prospects
The use of open violence put NLS in the spotlight of authorities. The NLS leadership initially managed to escape prosecution by moving away from Curaçao, but many have been arrested.
The arrests throughout the region demonstrate on the one hand the ability of NLS members to become key players in the global cocaine trade. On the other, considering the blows against NLS leadership, the organization has an uncertain future.