‘Cocaine-berg’

Incinerators can no longer keep up with the “mountain of cocaine” seized by Belgian customs at the port of Antwerp. The backlog of drugs waiting to be destroyed by the authorities is now so significant it has earned the nickname “cocaine-berg”. Law enforcement and justice officers have warned the pile-up of illicit substances, worth hundreds of millions of euros, could be stolen back by heavily armed criminal gangs. “We are urgently looking for additional incineration capacity,” Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgium’s Justice Minister, said. In 2021, Belgian customs officers seized nearly 90 tonnes of cocaine being smuggled through the port of Antwerp, which has become the gateway for illicit imports into Europe. The country is expected to surpass the amount of cocaine seized in its ports last year — a recordbreaking period. This year the seizure figure is on track to be more than 100 tonnes, cocaine worth about €5 billion ($8.4b) on the street.