For centuries, the port of Antwerp was the source of this elegant city. Once known for its diamonds, art and fashion, another imported product has sparked a cash flow flooding Antwerp with corruption, violence and economic disruption: cocaine. That writes the Wall Street Journal.

according to the newspaper to take the form of this year88 have taken coca hidden in containers from Latin America. A tenfold increase in the amount in 2014. Probably a multiple of this has still been noticed.

The port of Antwerp handles about 20,000 containers every day. Of these, only 1 in 42 is checked, according to the newspaper earlier this year The time. He does note that this is an improvement compared to two years ago. Then customs checked 1 in every 100 containers.

Low Countries have overtaken Spain as largest drug smuggling route from Latin America

Antwerp and Rotterdam, the two largest ports in Europe, are the main gateways for cocaine to the continent. This is apparent from a joint agency of the United Nations Office and Europol of the European Union. The Low Countries overtook Spain as the largest smuggling route for the drugs received from South America.

Because smugglers flood the continent with cocaine, Europe would now have become a bigger market than the US, according to the US DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). The demand for cocaine is endless. A total of 4.3 million Europeans use coine, according to a report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) in 2019. The numbers are expected to be driven by the pandemic. have increased further.

The DEA compares the situation in Antwerp to the “drug economy” of Miami in the 1980s. The drug war in Miami was developed by a series of conflicting conflicts between the United States government and various drug cartels, most notably the Medellín cartel. The war was fueled mainly by the illegal trade in cocaine.

Bart De Wever: “Every layer of society is infected”

The development of cash investment has disrupted the city’s economy. Society is being put under pressure, according to Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever. “Bad money drives out good money,” he says. “It drives honest people away.” According to him, “every layer of society is infected”.

People who work in government services are executed for passing information to cocaine smuggling networks. Young people are recruited by the drug mafia with the promise of money and a flashy fast. Also, some companies have a harder time trying with front companies. Those are managed by those who bear large losses. For example, a transport company that extracts cocaine from shipping containers can also legally transport it on behalf of multinationals “because their prices are lower than those of the destroyed ones”. Drug traffickers buy restaurants or shops to give the impression that their fortunes come from legal trade.

Earlier this year, police infiltrated an encrypted messenger system and downloaded about a billion messages. That has led to hundreds of arrests and stimulated many further discoveries. But officials admit they are fighting a relentless struggle.

“In a few months other people will take their place, but the experience helps us develop new strategies,” said Franky De Keyzer, Antwerp’s chief prosecutor. “It’s always a bit of a cat-and-mouse game.”

(am)