BRUSSELS — Cocaine seizures in Europe’s biggest importing countries — the Netherlands and Belgium — have plummeted this year as heightened enforcement pushes traffickers to ports in southern and northern Europe.
Rotterdam and Antwerp, the bloc’s largest cargo seaports, interdicted just over half of the amount of cocaine in the first half of 2024 as they did in the same period last year. Belgian customs seized 22 metric tons, down from 43, while the Dutch grabbed 16 metric tons, down from 28, according to the latest figures.
Both countries have heavily ramped up efforts to intercept drugs and prevent drug-related violence, such as increased police presence, more sophisticated customs equipment and collaborations with the source countries in Latin America.
Drug gangs also suffered a significant blow after authorities managed to crack an encrypted messaging network — known as Sky ECC — heavily used by drug criminals, in March 2021.
But their progress comes at a cost for other countries.
“The Spanish colleagues are now under increased pressure because the criminals have decided that Antwerp and Rotterdam are maybe less attractive now,” Kristian Vanderwaeren, Belgium’s head of customs, told POLITICO. “They now target Spain more.”
“We also see more and more seizures of cocaine destined for Scandinavian countries,” Bob Van den Berghe, regional coordinator for the container control program at the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told POLITICO. “We see Sweden. We see Denmark.”
It’s a game of Whac-A-Mole that experts warned would happen. Cracking down on drug trafficking in one port causes gangs to divert operations to others where they encounter less resistance. And that means drug-related violence that has plagued Antwerp and Rotterdam also seeps further into Europe as well.
In 2022, there were 81 drug-related shootings and explosions in Antwerp, as drug gangs’ turf wars spilled onto the streets. Port employees are also targets. In November, two dock workers were tied up and threatened with a knife in a customs building in an alleged attempt by gangs to steal seized drugs back.
It’s also why some politicians argue that only an EU-wide plan can effectively tackle drug trafficking.
“These numbers show we need a European approach against drug trafficking,” Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said in a statement shared with POLITICO in response to Belgium and the Netherlands’ customs’ numbers.
Earlier this year, the European Commission and the then-Belgian presidency of the Council of the EU launched a Ports Alliance — an effort to link governments, law enforcement officials, and port and shipping companies to boost port security and keep drugs out.
Currently, 31 harbors have joined the effort, Johansson said. “It takes a network to fight a network,” she added.
She also argues that this network needs to stretch to the other side of the Atlantic. Johansson has made several visits to Latin America, together with national ministers including Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden.
But not all drug loads can be traced back to Latin America.
The West African country of Sierra Leone surprisingly topped the list of countries to which the cocaine seized in Antwerp could be traced back, Belgian customs said.
It’s maybe a sign that due to a Latin America “fixation,” cocaine smuggled through new routes was missed, Belgian customs head Vanderwaeren admitted.
“Maybe they tried to circumvent us with the West African routes,” he said.
New methods of smuggling are also in full swing, like importing coca paste rather than cocaine. Paste is cheaper and therefore less troublesome to lose in transit.
“We have been detecting labs in the European Union that are specialised in processing coca paste into street cocaine,” Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth said in a statement shared with POLITICO.