Belgium Expected To Announce Record Annual Cocaine Haul

Antwerp, Belgium, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Jan, 2023 ) :Belgium is expected to announce Tuesday a new annual record for cocaine seizures at its port of Antwerp, likely over 100 tonnes, amid ever more aggressive activity by drug cartels.

The ports in Antwerp and nearby Rotterdam in the Netherlands are the two main gateways for cocaine dispatched from Latin America to enter Europe, often hidden in consignments of fruit.

The Belgian facility has been breaking records each successive year over the past decade for the amount of cocaine detected and seized.

In 2021, Belgian authorities seized a total of 89.5 tonnes (98.7 tons) in the port, a third more than in 2020.

As of mid-October last year, the running total stood at 71.62 tonnes after some hundred discoveries in the port, according to a spokesman for the finance ministry, which is in charge of customs inspections.

The size of the seizures only grew in the last quarter of 2022, towards Christmas, a period when cocaine consumption spikes, a Belgian customs spokeswoman told AFP.

Several interceptions netted more than three tonnes of cocaine each -- and in mid-October, one consignment comprising two containers from Suriname contained a total of six tonnes.

At that rate, it appears likely that the total haul for 2022 will be over 100 tonnes.

Yet authorities estimate they stop only around 10 percent of the volume of the illegal drug smuggled through Antwerp, despite deploying sniffer dogs and container scanners.