Customs in Belgium announced - today, Tuesday - that the authorities seized last year about 110 tons of cocaine in the port of Antwerp, which is the first gateway for smuggling this drug into Europe from Latin America.
These confiscated quantities are record, for the first time exceeding 100 tons, noting that about 90 tons of cocaine were seized in the same port in 2021.
The outcome of 2022 was announced during the first joint announcement by the authorities in Belgium and the Netherlands of the annual outcome of drug seizures in the two countries.
Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Petegem and Dutch Foreign Minister Oki de Vries said - during a joint press conference - that the customs authorities in the two countries seized a total of 160 tons last year.
In the Dutch port of Rotterdam, another major entry point for drug smuggling into Europe, the quantities of cocaine seized last year fell to 52.5 tons, compared to about 70 tons in 2021, according to the joint declaration.
Artificial intelligence to track containers
The Belgian and Dutch ministers stressed the intensive cooperation between the two countries in combating drug trafficking, noting that the investments of the next few years will focus particularly on artificial intelligence, chemical detection, and container tracking.
In the framework of bilateral cooperation, teams of Dutch divers are intervening in the port of Antwerp, inspecting possible caches in the hulls of ships below the waterline.
The Belgian government will employ 100 customs agents and purchase new surveying equipment to strengthen control operations in the port of Antwerp, and an investment in this equipment has been announced in the amount of 70 million euros.
In Latin America, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador are the three main countries for smuggling cocaine into Europe.