They say in Antwerp that the city owes the Scheldt to providence and, to the Scheldt, everything else. It is a river as international as the traffic that reaches it, it originates in France, crosses Belgium and ends in the Netherlands. But not only goods transit with absolute ease through its port, the largest in Europe, in front of Rotterdam since it merged with that of Zeebrugge.
In a few years, the inexhaustible source of prosperity that the Scheldt has been for centuries for Antwerp and Belgium has become the source of an unprecedented wave of violence linked to drug trafficking. The hack, now two years ago, of Sky ECC’s supposedly impenetrable messaging system used by the underworld gave access to millions of messages and led to the opening of more than 500 cases, the arrest of more of 1,400 people in several countries and the conviction of hundreds of individuals. But if a shipment does not reach its destination, there is always someone who pays for it. And, when the anthill was moved, an uncontrollable dynamic of brutal infighting and revenge between gangs was unleashed. “We have entered a new phase of narco-terrorism in our country”, admitted the Belgian Minister of Justice, Vincent Van Quickenborne. But “the last thing we will do now is throw in the towel”, he says.
Antwerp is, for now, the epicenter of cocaine in Europe. 2022 marked a new record in seizures in the Flemish port, 110 tons compared to 90 the previous year (the police feared an attack on their warehouses, they did not have the scope to destroy so much drugs). It was the largest amount intercepted in Europe, ahead of the neighboring port of Rotterdam, where 50 tons were detected. The concern is similar in Belgium and the Netherlands. The gangs speak the same languages, Dutch and Arabic, and cross borders on their own, either to recover goods or to settle scores.
The surroundings of Antwerp have become the daily scene of shootings, intimidating grenade explosions, disappearances, torture, contract killings, as well as death threats against police officers, judges and even the Minister of Justice , who has spent seasons locked away in a secret location with his wife and two young children due to kidnapping threats (five Dutchmen have been arrested for planning their kidnapping). In the Netherlands, it is Princess Amà lia, 19 years old, who lives semi-confined.
Every week there is an attack. In January, an 11-year-old girl, the niece of a trafficker, died in her home from a stray bullet from a shooting. A few days ago, a resident of the area who had been kidnapped a month earlier at a gas station, allegedly because of the disappearance of a shipment of drugs, was released on the other side of the border. Police believe they were mistaken for a person. This same weekend, an attack with explosives damaged 20 houses and 5 cars in the center of Antwerp.
“Things are getting complicated,†says Jackie de Moor, the owner of The Club, a roadside restaurant in the harbor known for serving very large versions of all its products, tailored to its customers’ beefy backs. from sandwiches to fries or the cookie for coffee, in this case a donut. “I’ve been here for 20 years and things are getting worse. More drugs, more unemployment, more vandalism, more violence… The port has always been an island, a world apart, but now there is a different atmosphere”, he says with concern.
A large banner on the facade of his premises warns against the temptation to collaborate in drug trafficking and warns that “there is no way out” of this world of violence. “Hey, Ben, do you want to earn an extra salary?”, “Don’t you feel like driving a sports car?”, read some fictitious messages on social networks aimed at employees of the port. “That’s how it works,” agrees De Moor. “Personally, I hate drugs, that’s why we collaborate with the campaign. The port is taking the issue very seriously. To us, as a business, it seems important. We don’t want to be in a danger zone or for them to stay here to make sales. We want to be a cafe for truck drivers and longshoremen, not for traffickers.”
The campaign, which offers an anonymous platform to report suspicious movements or colleagues, targets the necessary collaborators traffickers rely on at the port. The hacking of the Sky ECC app not only revealed the terrifying practices of criminals and helped locate laboratories, a torture chamber in a container in the Netherlands or a shredder in Serbia where they disposed of human remains (“It was like sitting at the table with the criminals”, said the director of Europol, Catherine Bolle). He also provided information on the thick network of contacts they have among officials, employees of logistics companies and the police.
The port currently employs 150,000 people. Among the measures of the new action plan announced by the Government in February, there is the examination by the intelligence services of 16,000 workers in “sensitive places” at the port, a process already underway among the 750 agents of customs that Rotterdam has also started. Besides. will beef up the courts with more qualified staff to follow the money trail and has promised to send 200 more police to the port.
Due to its enormous size (160 square kilometers) and high traffic (240 million tons before the merger with Bruges) port control is a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack. Less than 2% of the containers are examined. The Government is working with the large companies in the sector to develop smart seals that record who opens them and, in parallel, has signed an agreement with Ecuador – more than half of the drugs confiscated in 2022 left Guayaquil – to cooperate against drug trafficking.
Antwerp is the main gateway for cocaine to Europe, but much of it stays at home and the Belgian Executive plans to raise the fine for possession of 10 grams of cocaine from 300 to 1,000 euros to discourage its use. “Here they already know they shouldn’t come, but there’s always someone clueless”, says the owner of The Club, who explains that he has kicked out customers for sniffing cocaine on his terrace in broad daylight. A study by the European Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction has concluded that the Scheldt city is the place in Europe where the most drugs are consumed. Wastewater doesn’t lie.
