Belgium to step up fight against drug smuggling and organised crime

The Belgian authorities is stepping up its battle towards organised crime and the drug smuggling that goes with it by hiring extra customs brokers on the Port of Antwerp.

As Europe’s second largest port, thousands and thousands of transport containers go by its gates yearly, which is why it’s typically referred to as the gateway to the continent, alongside the Port of Rotterdam within the Netherlands.

“For the final 5 years, we’ve been breaking (medicine) data right here in Antwerp,” Florence Angelici, spokesperson for the Belgian Federal Public Finance Service informed Euronews. “Final 12 months, there have been 89 tonnes of cocaine seized right here in Antwerp. It was a really large 12 months, however nonetheless, we see the numbers rising.”

“We’re at present hiring 100 new customs brokers and we’re about to construct new scanning units straight contained in the terminals and the goal is to scan 100% of the danger containers.”

Some 41 tonnes have been recovered by authorities in 2017, with the quantity rising year-on-year to achieve 65.5 tonnes in 2020.

Seizures hit a peak in 2021, with 89 metric tonnes seized after investigators cracked the encrypted messaging service Sky ECC and intercepted a billion messages throughout a two-year investigation.

Struggle on medicine is already misplaced

For Professor Letizia Paoli, an professional in organised crime at Catholic College Leuven, the warfare on medicine is already misplaced and Europe ought to begin focusing as an alternative on the injury induced.

“The warfare towards [drug] trafficking can’t be received,” she informed Euronews. “And I feel that police forces throughout Europe ought to focus not a lot on decreasing the flows as a result of in areas such because the European Union with open borders, it is actually laborious to stay to using legal guidelines.

“As an alternative they need to, as a lot as attainable, attempt to scale back the harms related to drug trafficking itself, the harms of violence and the harms of corruption.”

Paoli added that an EU-wide dialogue on the legalisation of some narcotics needs to be explored.

“On the identical time, (we must always) begin a debate on whether or not or not some medicine needs to be legalised in such a manner as to cut back the revenues of organised criminals.”

However as drug seizures have elevated, so has violence linked to organised crime. 

Simply final month, Belgium’s Justice Minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, was caught up in a foiled kidnapping plot linked to organised crime within the Netherlands.

He described it as “narco-terrorism” with others even calling Belgium a “narcostate”. Paoli, nonetheless, stated this definition is unjustified.

“There is no such thing as a purpose to outline Belgium as a narcostate. There are big variations with actual narcostates, resembling Mexico, for instance,” she defined. 

“In Belgium, within the Netherlands, the general public administration has extra integrity, so there are only a few instances identified of civil servants which have been corrupted by organised criminals.”

Paoli added that the document cocaine recovered final 12 months on the Port of Antwerp practically matched the entire EU’s yearly consumption and nonetheless costs throughout the continent didn’t enhance.

In reality, she stated the price of cocaine even decreased in some instances, displaying that offer continues to be readily flowing by Europe, regardless of police seizures.