New record set for port cocaine seizures
Belgian customs officers seized a record 116 tonnes of cocaine at the Port of Antwerp last year, with the city now considered the main gate for imports of the drug.
A further five tonnes were seized in 2023 at the port of Zeebrugge.
Most of the drugs were loaded on vessels leaving Ecuador, Colombia or Brazil, Belgium’s port authority said.
Because security operations at the bigger ports are being strengthened to deal with the flood of illegal substances, traffickers are now switching to smaller ports, says a report by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and DFrug Addiction, an EU organisation.
This means the true level of cocaine coming into the continent is bound to be far higher than most estimates.
”Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain continue to be the countries reporting the highest volumes of seizures, reflecting the importance of these countries as entry points for cocaine trafficking to Europe,” says the report. ”In 2022, the quantity of cocaine seized in Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest seaport, rose to 110 tonnes from 91 tonnes in 2021, with volumes seized increasing annually since 2016.”
In the Netherlands, 60 tonnes was seized in 2023, with most found at Rotterdam and Vlissingen. The Dutch state secretary for Benefits and Customs, Aukje de Vries, said most of the drugs were found in the cooling systerms on containers.
“Customs officers also regularly discovered drugs in the cargo or concealed in the structure of the container,” she said. “Customs also found the largest ever consignment of cocaine. This was a consignment of 8,000kg of cocaine, shipped from Ecuador to Rotterdam via Panama.”
“Our fight against drugs is like a water bed, so if you push it somewhere, somewhere else the water will come up,” said Annick De Ridder, chair of the board of directors of Antwerp.
Belgium and the Netherlands are working more closely together to try and stamp out the trafficking, they said.
In Rotterdam, scans of containers have increased by 40% compared to 2022. In the ports, Underwater robots, smart cameras and drones are being deployed – and on one occasion drug smugglers on an underwater scooter were intercepted using a drone, customs officers said.
