Belgium’s drug trafficking ‘even bigger’ problem than terrorism

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Cocaine trafficking is an “even bigger” challenge than terrorism in Belgium, said the country’s justice minister, who called on the EU to speed up international co-operation to help catch drug lords hiding abroad.

Vincent Van Quickenborne told the Financial Times that the EU needs joint extradition agreements and increased co-operation among ports to combat international trafficking networks. Belgium’s port city of Antwerp is the largest cocaine trafficking hub in Europe, with a record of almost 110 tonnes seized last year, up from about 90 tonnes in 2021 and 66 tonnes in 2020, according to customs authorities.

“What the fight was against Islamist terrorism seven/eight years ago is now today the fight against organised crime,” Van Quickenborne said, adding that “the magnitude [of drug trafficking] is even bigger” than terrorism because of the hundreds of thousands of users across Europe who have “blood on their noses”.

Van Quickenborne is under police protection after criminal gangs attempted to kidnap him and his family last September

Cocaine seizures in Belgium in the first half of 2023 rose 21 per cent compared to the same period in 2022, and customs authorities expect another record year.

Antwerp’s growth as a smuggling hub is a result of its sprawling size, which makes it difficult to control, as well as a large amount of container shipments arriving from Latin America, where cocaine production has increased over the past seven years.

In February, the Belgian government announced new measures to fight the criminal networks, including appointing a dedicated drugs commissioner, more than 200 additional staff for police and customs, new container scanning equipment as well as background checks on 16,000 port employees.

Cocaine smuggling has risen since 2017. Belgian police spent “a lot of energy” on counter-terrorism in the wake of the 2016 attacks on Brussels, the minister said. But drug trafficking was now “on the top of every government [agenda] in Europe”, he said.

In recent years, several kingpins overseeing the illegal trade have moved to locations including the United Arab Emirates and Turkey to evade prosecution. Authorities in Belgium and other EU countries had struggled to get them extradited, Van Quickenborne said. His country signed an extradition accord with the UAE in 2021, which so far has proved ineffective.

“There should be more European pressure on the Emirates,” Van Quickenborne said. “If I talk to my colleagues in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, they all have a wish list of the people that are hiding in Dubai and they are not able to move to see them extradited to Europe.”

Extradition or other legal agreements facilitating cross-border prosecution “coming out of Europe instead of on a bilateral basis could help us to put pressure on Dubai,” he said. He also called for a “network of port prosecutors” to exchange information.

Dutch, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Belgian ministers met in Antwerp in June to discuss organised crime, where they signed a declaration supporting an EU-wide approach.

The European Commission declined to comment on Van Quickenborne’s call for action but said it was “engaged in stepping up the efforts against drug trafficking, including cocaine in the EU”.

The flexibility of criminal groups means they could increasingly move to different European ports, such as Hamburg, Le Havre and Valencia to evade tighter measures in Antwerp, according to Europol.

Van Quickenborne warned that it would be difficult to completely stamp out the drug trade, but said he was “very determined to continue our fight . . . [and] eradicate these drug criminals”.