Almost 110 tons of cocaine were seized by Belgian authorities in 2022 in the Belgian port of Antwerp, the first route of entry for this drug shipped from Latin America to Europe, a new record.
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The figure was announced by Belgian customs on Tuesday during a joint press conference between Belgium and the Netherlands to recognize the two countries’ “intensive cooperation” in the fight against this international trade.
The two neighboring countries, with Spain, are among the top three in terms of access routes to the European continent for cocaine, which is mainly shipped from Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.
But the gap between the port of Antwerp and that of Rotterdam (Netherlands), where white powder was caught last year, widens to 46.8 tons compared to 72.8 in 2021.
The Dutch prosecutor clarified that the figure of 52.5 tonnes originally announced for Rotterdam also included seizures in the port city of Vlissingen in Zeeland.
Conversely, Belgium keeps flying from record to record. In Antwerp, the 100-ton mark was exceeded for the first time.
Seizures there totaled 109.9 tons in 2022, compared to 89.5 tons in 2021, customs said. Thanks to the amount of information gathered by human traffickers with the infiltration of the encrypted Sky ECC phone network, the figure for 2021 has already increased by 36% compared to the previous year.
The confiscations “accelerated in the fall,” said a spokeswoman for Belgian customs.
She recalled that the holiday season usually marked a peak in cocaine use. And a few weeks before, the cartels increase the shipments of white powder to prepare this “white Christmas”, a colorful expression that Kristian Vanderwaeren, General Manager of Customs, likes.
Mr Vanderwaeren on Tuesday insisted on “the creativity of criminal organizations” to meet the growing demand for cocaine, which authorities are having to adapt to.
Belgium plans to hire 108 additional customs officers and new €70m scanning equipment to strengthen its controls.
“For the Netherlands, investments in the coming years will relate in particular to artificial intelligence, chemical detection and container tracing,” emphasized a joint press release from both countries.
Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem and Dutch Customs Secretary Aukje de Vries were side by side at a Belgian bonded warehouse in Beveren near Antwerp to announce these figures.
“The two customs authorities together seized 160 tons of cocaine last year,” it said.
Concrete example of bilateral cooperation: teams of Dutch divers intervene in the port of Antwerp to inspect possible caches in ship hulls below the waterline.
The Belgian and Dutch governments are all concerned about the increasingly violent crime caused by drug trafficking on their territories.
An 11-year-old girl was killed in Antwerp on Monday when the house she was staying in came under fire in what is believed to be part of a reckoning between rival gangs.
At the end of 2022, the Flemish city’s public prosecutor said it had identified “more than 200 drug-related violent crimes” in five years.
Aiming or throwing explosive devices is often viewed as intimidation. They are also intended to draw police attention to one family or location more than another.
As for the threats, they can target the highest authorities in the state: in September, a plot to kidnap Belgian Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne was foiled. This Flemish liberal leader had to be placed under close police surveillance with his family.
He attributed this project to the “drug terrorism” rampant in Belgium.