Cocaine smugglers use the Port of Antwerp as their preferred destination to distribute the drug across the European Union, benefiting from the country’s thriving trade links with Latin America.
According to Maritime Executive, cocaine seizures have risen at the port every year for the past decade as customs officials face a daunting uphill battle to keep up with the ever-changing smuggling methods. The volumes of cocaine smuggled through the port have become so large that the Belgian customs agency's incinerators are struggling to keep up with destroying the seized drug.
Antwerp officials seized a record 110 tonnes of cocaine, and officials at the nearby Port of Rotterdam seized 50 tonnes in 2022.
According to a recent UN report on narcotics, the seizures at the two EU ports account for one out of every 20 kilograms produced globally, excluding the undetected drugs that manage to get through customs.
"Outside South America, we are the number one in Antwerp when it comes to cocaine. Belgium accounts for 40% of all detections in Europe. Antwerp is therefore really the top destination for those criminals,” a customs official, Kristian Vanderwaeren, told VRT NWS.
An additional 70 tonnes of cocaine bound for Antwerp was seized in South America before it could cross the Atlantic in 2022, due to the assistance of Belgian authorities.
Cocaine that arrives in Belgium is packaged and distributed throughout Western Europe at prices exceeding $30 000 per kilo, which is up to 12 times the value in origin markets in South America. Criminal gangs have previously also infiltrated drug retrieval teams in the Port of Antwerp by hiding inside empty containers where they wait for the right time to break out and pick up inbound drugs inside the port terminal.
