The port in Europe that became a ‘paradise’ for drug traffickers in Latin America

The city of Antwerp, Belgium, is very famous for the diamond trade.

But there is another business — less brilliant, but just as lucrative or more — that has been appropriating its reputation. And it is an illegal trade.

The port of Antwerp is the second largest in Europe and millions of containers pass through it every year. It ended up becoming the main gateway for cocaine on the European continent.

Antwerp surpassed the coast of Galicia, in northwest Spain, where most of the drug was smuggled until a few years ago.

Over the past five years, cocaine busts have broken one record after another.

In 2022 alone, Belgian authorities found almost 110 tons of the narcotic – an increase of 23% over the previous year, according to the latest data released by the Public Finance Service of Belgium, the supervisory institution of customs.

This volume represents 40% of all cocaine seized in Europe. The second largest port of entry, right behind Antwerp, is Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where 52.5 tons were found in 2022.

The volume of contraband is so large that Belgian authorities warned in 2022 that their incinerators were not able to destroy all the drug being intercepted.

It is estimated that this volume represents only 10% of all cocaine arriving at the port of Antwerp. Shipments come mainly from Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia. And recently also from Panama and Costa Rica.

But what makes the port of Antwerp such a coveted destination for drug traffickers? One of the reasons is its enormous size, according to the spokeswoman for the Public Finance Service of Belgium, Florence Angelici. At 129 km², the port of Antwerp is larger than the entire city of Paris, France.

In tonnage, Antwerp is smaller than Rotterdam, but its surface area far exceeds the neighboring port. Currently, there are 160 km of piers, against 70 in the Dutch port.

“Through it, roads pass and even cities that were inside the port, which grew a lot. This makes surveillance very difficult”, explains Angelici to BBC News Mundo, the BBC’s Spanish-language service.

The difficulty of controlling entrances and exits in the metropolis makes it a paradise for drug traffickers, who can collect all the information necessary to introduce and withdraw the drug at the port.

Paul Meyer knows the port of Antwerp like the back of his hand. Dutchman, Meyer was sentenced in 2007 to 12 years in prison for smuggling huge amounts of drugs into Europe. Repentant, he is now dedicated to calling attention to the “sieve” that the port has become, in his opinion.

In the past, he and his group have tried to smuggle the drug through ports in Hamburg, Germany, or Marseille, France. But he says that in Antwerp it was always much simpler.

“The harbor is open,” explains Meyer to the BBC’s European correspondent, Nick Beake. “You walk in and all the information you need to get started is right there. You have the truck drivers, the people who work at the port, you can see the name of the ship.”

Currently, only 350 customs agents oversee incoming goods. This number is clearly insufficient and, according to the spokeswoman for the Public Finance Service, it will be reinforced by another 108 employees, “who will dedicate themselves exclusively to drug control”.

fruit route

In addition to the surveillance difficulties, one should add that the port of Antwerp is a “historic route for transporting fruit from Latin America to Europe”, according to Florence Angelici. “The port has refrigerated terminals and everything necessary to receive these fruits.”

These consolidated routes move millions of containers across the Atlantic Ocean every year. Criminal networks take advantage of the routes to introduce cocaine into containers that will be consumed in Europe. In many cases, exporters are unaware that their cargo has been intercepted by drug traffickers.

Smugglers are creative. Belgian customs have already seen all kinds of strategies to hide the drug.

“They use all kinds of fruit, like bananas, for example, and they put cocaine in the middle of the boxes”, according to Angelici. “Or they use pineapples, make a hole in the fruit and put the drug in it.”

This type of container is refrigerated “and, in that cooling system, there is a hole that is also used to hide the packages”, she says.

Packages of drugs have already been found inside wooden logs. Angelici recalls that there was even a case of “clothes impregnated with liquid cocaine. When the customs agents opened the boxes, they only saw clothes, but, with a more detailed examination, they realized that the drug was in the fabric”.

With all the difficulties involved in guarding the port, one of the most used methods of smuggling cocaine, which is much more direct, is the so-called “rip on/rip off”, or “blind hook”.

The method consists of introducing packages of cocaine on top of the regular merchandise in the containers, without hiding them. They are often kept in sports bags that can be easily transported.

“When they arrive at the port, there are people inside the terminals who remove the bags quickly from the containers”, according to Angelici. “There may be 100 or 200 kg, but they are very flexible.”

Sometimes these people do not remove the drug from the port, but transfer it to other containers that they know will not be inspected, either because they have already been checked or because they do not require inspection, such as those that transport products from one country to another, within of the European Union.

From Antwerp it is very easy to reach other countries, such as France or Germany, where the drug will be consumed.

But, according to Europol (the European Union Agency for Police Cooperation), a large part of the drug is transported to the Netherlands and, from there, criminal groups distribute it throughout Europe.

increase in consumption

Even with the record of seizures, the drug continues to flow. European institutions are aware of the situation because the price of cocaine on the street has not increased and, in some cases, has even decreased.

“We observed that, in Latin America, harvesting methods were modified. Now, they have genetically modified plants and manage two or three harvests a year, instead of just one”, says Angelici. By producing more, it is possible to provide more.

“And, the more we apprehend, the more they lose. Therefore, they need to generate more profits to compensate for this loss”, according to her. “This is another reason why more cocaine is coming in.”

Cocaine is one of the most consumed drugs in Europe. Its use has increased significantly in recent years, in part due to falling prices, according to the latest report on the cocaine market by the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Addiction, produced jointly with Europol.

In sales networks, consumers often find 2-for-1 offers and promotions, such as those seen in supermarkets. In many cases, it is no longer necessary to go down a dark alley. Just a message through apps like WhatsApp and the cocaine is delivered at home.

The report estimates that the cocaine business in Europe surpassed US$11.3 billion (about R$57.6 billion) in 2020, which represents a third of all drug trafficking.

And when there is movement of money on a large scale, so does organized crime.

Antwerp was a relatively quiet city until recently. But recent years have brought an explosion of violence, directly related to different drug trafficking groups, with shootings and even explosions that terrified its inhabitants.

Its first fatality was an 11-year-old girl, who died in a shooting on 9 January. In recent years, up to 200 violent incidents have been recorded. It was common in neighboring Holland, but not in Antwerp.

Among the narco-terrorist groups that dominate the market is what is known as the Mocro Maffia. Originally from the Netherlands, the group is responsible for several murders, such as that of Dutch investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries and lawyer Derk Wiersum, who represented a person who would testify against the group. Both crimes took place in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam.

Belgium’s Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne himself was forced to beef up his security after four Dutch suspects were detained who were apparently planning to kidnap him.

This text was published here.