Cocaine from South America floods the port of Antwerp in Belgium

by time news

The country became a gateway for illegal drugs in Europe. In 2022, 110 tons of coca were seized, a record.

Spain was traditionally the gateway to Europe for cocaine from South and Central America, but those times are over.

For years and due to the greater control in Spanish ports and the loss of influence in the illegal drug market of the Galician cartels, that gateway has been moving north, mainly to Belgian and Dutch ports.

The reports of the specialized agency of the European Union warned for years, but the data for 2022 mark an unprecedented rebound.

Antwerp is already the great gateway to Europe for cocaine and for the first time last year Belgium seized more than 100 tons of cocaine, a figure that no European country had ever reached.

The 110 tons seized last year double the 52.5 that the Dutch security services managed to intercept and multiply by three what was seized in Spain.



Containers on a cargo ship in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, this Wednesday. Photo: AP

Antwerp, the second European port by volume of goods, is a drug highway to Europewhere there has never been such a quantity of cocaine on the market and its prices have never been so low.

The increase in cocaine seizures has not stopped growing for a decade, when they were barely 10 tons a year. The graph published by the Belgian press is an upward, regular arrow, to which practically 10 more tons are added each year. Belgium is the destination for almost half of the cocaine that reaches Europe.

alarming figures

The European Observatory for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which publishes its data with a delay compared to national authorities, assured last year that in 2020 throughout the European Union 213 tons of cocaine had been seized, of which 70 had been in Belgium. .

The increase in the amount of drugs seized in 2021 and 2022 brings that figure to over 110 tons. Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain account for more than 75% of cocaine seizures in Europe.

A trained dog searches banana shipments for drugs in Antwerp, Belgium.  Photo: AFP


A trained dog searches banana shipments for drugs in Antwerp, Belgium. Photo: AFP

The port moves such a number of containers each day that it is impossible to control them all.

Cocaine enters mainly hidden in fruit shipments from Latin America. The authorities do not hide the fact that if they seize more drugs, it is because more drugs are also coming in. Belgium is looking for ways to stop the entry of cocaine.

Also in the Netherlands the situation is worrying. Since last year, Dutch divers have been combing the hulls of suspected ships in an attempt to find hiding places below the surface that have escaped checks.

Belgium also promises more means. Its authorities announced on Tuesday that they will increase the number of customs officers responsible for searching for drugs by more than a hundred and that there will be new technological equipment to scan more and more containers. More than 70 million euros will be spent this year on material alone.

Packages of drugs seized in the port of Antwerp, Belgium.  Photo: AP


Packages of drugs seized in the port of Antwerp, Belgium. Photo: AP

“Tsunami de droga”

Some operations show the confidence that the big drug cartels seem to have in their ability to bypass the controls in Antwerp.

Last October, in a single operation, Belgian customs checkpoints seized more than six tons of cocaine from Suriname. The Belgian government does not hide the seriousness of the situation and speaks of a “tsunami” of drugs or that the country’s large port is “flooded” with cocaine.

The increase in the arrival of cocaine is generating a increase in violence.

Shootouts for revenge or attempts to steal merchandise between mafias are becoming more frequent and the Minister of Justice and his family had to be placed under permanent police surveillance and leave his home because the secret services believed that he could be the victim of an attack. .

Brussels, special

CB​

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