On a calm August morning, as the sun finally rises timidly in one of the rainiest Brussels summers on record, the Peterbos neighborhood on the outskirts of the Belgian capital looks sleepy. The simple and inexpensive blocks of flats are crammed into a block surrounded by gardens, separating them from other newer buildings and even from large family homes. Aside from a few youngsters crouching in the arcades, following with little concealment any visitor from outside the neighborhood, this hardly suggests that Peterbos is one of the main drug-selling centers in the Belgian capital. But appearances are deceptive. “They notify each other, they have a system of whistles and signals to alert the police,” says a neighbor who has lived outside the neighborhood for several decades.
Drug sales and the conflicts that accompany them don’t usually spill over into other parts of the neighborhood, admit she and another neighbor, who walks his dog in the area and preferred not to give their names. But both avoid entering Peterbos at all costs. Police have stepped up their patrols in the area as well as other conflict-ridden parts of the city, particularly around Midi and Nord train stations in the heart of the capital.
Both local authorities and senior police officials have been sounding the alarm over the past few weeks, fearing the situation is spiraling out of control. The acknowledged fear is that Brussels is becoming a new Marseille, the French port city where gangs completely dominate some neighborhoods and even flaunt military weapons, often used in clashes with rival groups and the police.
It’s no secret that Belgium has a serious drug-trafficking problem that’s difficult to tackle – the justice minister and his family were placed under special police protection last year after it was revealed drug dealers were trying to kidnap them. But so far, most of the incidents have happened in Antwerp, one of the busiest ports in Europe and the main gateway for cocaine imports from Latin America. A spate of extreme violence linked to a drug gang settlement in the Belgian capital has set off alarm bells.
In an unusual gesture, nearly half a dozen senior officers from Brussels’ federal criminal police, including its director Eric Jacobs, decided to take a step forward earlier this month, warning of “an unprecedented level of violence” in an interview with Le Soir newspaper. For some time now, the capital’s security forces have been faced with “incidents of kidnapping, torture, shooting with military weapons, throwing grenades, attacks with Molotov cocktails and homicides,” they told the newspaper.
According to a count by this newspaper, there have been at least six violent deaths linked to drug trafficking in Brussels since January 1, including one from a gun and three from a knife. A number that already triples the two drug trafficking homicides recorded in 2022. In addition, there were 20 serious injuries that required hospitalization and a further 41 other minor injuries. A total of almost 70 attacks were registered in the first six months of the year, half of which were committed with a knife. Police are also working on five cases of kidnappings between rival gangs – mostly Albanians in Brussels, while Moroccans dominate in Antwerp – as many as in all of last year. And these are just the known cases. Many assaults, torture or kidnappings take place far from the radar of police, who fear what is known is only the tip of the iceberg.
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The fact that Belgium is an ideal transit area for drug dealers is not new, remembers criminologist Michaël Dantinne: Antwerp has the second largest European seaport in just 30,000 square kilometers with good roads, Liège has the third largest inland port and four borders (Germany, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands).
But Dantinne, a professor of criminology at the University of Liège, prefers to be cautious about the figures and statements circulating among politicians, such as the talk of “narco-terrorism”, an extreme he believes exaggerated in the Belgian case. One has to see, he explains by e-mail, whether there is actually an increase in violence or whether it is “visible”. “Perhaps this violence, which has remained hidden until now, is more visible today. Because? “We are clearly facing increased competition between the narcotics markets as they have been destabilized by the investigation,” he affirmed. The expert points to the numerous anti-drug operations in Europe and Dubai, one of the points from which drug traffickers control drug trafficking since the encrypted conversation network SkyECC, used by many mafias, was hacked in 2021. This situation has led to a “reconfiguration of the market that appears to be accompanied by turf wars,” which appears to be happening in Brussels at the moment, adds Dantinne.
Prime Minister Alexander De Croo announced a new plan following the death in January of Firdaous, an 11-year-old girl who was shot in the heart in an attack on an Antwerp apartment building – her uncle is a well-known drug lord. These include the appointment of a national anti-narcotics commissioner, the creation of a police force responsible for port security in Antwerp, and stricter customs regulations aiming at “100%” scanning of suspect containers before they are released. End of the year and higher fines for consumers: between 75 and 150 euros for possession of small amounts of cannabis and up to 1,000 euros for possession of cocaine.
The measures do not appear to have discouraged the mafia for the time being. Belgian authorities announced in mid-July that more than 43 tonnes of cocaine, 2,800 kilos of heroin and 161 kilos of MDMA (ecstasy) had been seized in the port of Antwerp in the first six months of the year. For cocaine alone, the figures are already 21% higher than seizures in the same period of 2022 and higher than all seizures in 2017 (41.16 tonnes). Two weeks after the half-year report, customs reported that a further 1,879 kilos of cocaine had been seized in the same port.
Last week, Dutch customs also reported a record shipment in the port of Rotterdam: more than eight tons of cocaine hidden in a container of bananas from Panama. This country, along with Ecuador and Brazil, is the main entry point for the cocaine that arrives in Antwerp and Rotterdam, mostly hidden in one of the thousands of containers that are unloaded at these European ports every day.
The criminologist cannot hide a certain fatalism. “It’s an impossible fight. To believe that one day the drug trade will be completely abolished is an illusion,” warns Dantinne. Nevertheless, he concedes, one cannot throw in the towel. “It’s certainly no reason not to do anything.”
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