Belgium’s ‘cocaine mountain’ at new highs

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 that the pile-up of illicit substances, worth hundreds of millions of euros, could be stolen back by armed criminal gangs.

Vincent Van Quickenborne, Belgium’s justice minister, said: “We are urgently looking for additional incineration capacity. There has been something of a bottleneck as there have been so many seizures and also because one incinerator was in use.”

In 2021, Belgian customs officers seized almost 90 tons of cocaine being smuggled through Antwerp, which has become the gateway for illicit imports into Europe.

This year the seizure figure is on track to be more than 100 tons, cocaine worth over €5billion (£4.3billion) on the street.

Dozens of tons of cocaine are in warehouses waiting to be destroyed, because of the build-up and a limit of 1.5 tons can be destroyed at any one time for safety reasons.