Belgium has announced a new annual record for cocaine seizures at the port of Antwerp amid increasingly aggressive activities by drug cartels. The ports of Antwerp and nearby Rotterdam in the Netherlands are the two main gateways into Europe for cocaine from Latin America, which is often hidden in fruit shipments.
The Belgian facility has set new records for the amount of cocaine detected and seized every year for the past decade. In 2021, the Belgian authorities seized a total of 98.7 tonnes at the port, a third more than in 2020 and for 2022 the seizure is over 100 tonnes.
In mid-October last year, the total was 71.62 tonnes after around 100 cocaine finds were made at the port, according to a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance, which oversees customs inspections.
Seizures increased in the last quarter of 2022, around Christmas, a time when cocaine use is particularly high. More than three tonnes of cocaine were seized in several seizures – and in mid-October a shipment with two containers from Surinam contained a total of 6 tonnes. However, authorities estimate that despite the use of sniffer dogs and container scanners, they only stop about 10% of the amount of illegal drugs smuggled through Antwerp.
DRUG WAR
Violence increases with drug trafficking. On Monday (9th), an 11-year-old girl was killed after attackers opened fire on a house in Antwerp.
Mayor Bart De Wever described the shooting as an alleged “rule between gangs”. “There’s a drug war going on,” De Wever told local television.
According to the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office, more than 200 violent incidents related to drug smuggling have been registered in the last five years. These include threats of violence, muggings and even bombings of homes.
According to the customs authorities, Antwerp continues to be “inundated” with cocaine. So much of the drug has been intercepted that law enforcement officials fear they don’t have enough incinerator capacity to destroy it.
This has raised another problem: fears that the security around the storage sites of the seized cocaine is not sufficient to deter criminals who want to steal the cocaine.
Belgium is the main gateway for cocaine into Europe, ahead of Spain and the Netherlands. The top five exporting countries for the drug are Panama, Ecuador, Paraguay, Colombia and Brazil based on volumes intercepted.
With information from latinapress
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