Netherlands seizes four tons of cocaine bound for Portugal
More than four tons of cocaine hidden in soy bags, destined for Portugal, were discovered in the port of Rotterdam by Dutch customs.
The drug, with a estimated value of 313 million euros, was discovered overnight from Saturday to Sunday aboard a content or from Paraguay bound for a company in Portugal.
“This is the biggest apre of this year” in the Netherlands, a prosecutor told the ANP news agency.
Last week seizures were made almost daily at Europe’s largest port, which has become one of the main ports of entry for drugs, mainly cocaine, on the European continent.
In September, police seized a similar amount of cocaine, valued at €301 million, at the same port.
The Netherlands and Belgium have increased the main centers of cocaine trafficking to Europe, supplanting Spain, according to a report by the European police agency Europol, published in September.
the crescent use of containerized freight transport, capitalizing on how large resources from the port terminals in Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg “consolidated the Netherlands’ role as a transit zone”, especially for cocaine, the report specifies.
In 2020, cocaine seizures in Antwerp totaled 65.6 tons, according to Europol, and in February 2021, Germany and Belgium made a record seizure of 23 tons of drug hidden in shipping containers.
After cannabis, cocaine is the second most used drug in Western and Central Europe, with the latest pointing to 4.4 million users by 2020, the report concludes.