{"id":34802,"date":"2026-08-28T13:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/34802\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T13:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T13:16:14","slug":"brussels-prosecutor-fumes-at-lack-of-resources-to-tackle-drug-violence-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/34802\/","title":{"rendered":"Brussels prosecutor fumes at lack of resources to tackle drug violence \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cAs you can see, this hellish streak, which has been going on for several years, continues,\u201d Moinil said, adding that Brussels has already seen 69 gun-related incidents in 2026, against the 102 that took place in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The incidents reported in Saint-Gilles were linked to a fight between two drug-trafficking gangs. Still, innocent citizens were caught in the crossfire, the prosecutor said: In one attack, clients of a pizzeria had to seek cover from the flying bullets.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever is convening a meeting with the country\u2019s security services Friday afternoon to discuss drug-related shootings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lesoir.be\/767650\/article\/2026-08-28\/narcotrafic-bart-de-wever-convoque-les-services-de-securite\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Le Soir reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cToday, as a prosecutor, I am concerned for the citizens, since what I had pointed out \u2014 that anyone could get shot \u2014 has turned out to be true,\u201d the prosecutor warned.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2025, the police have arrested 93 adults and 14 underage suspects; closed 350 stores; and seized 3,500 luxury cars \u2014 which traffickers like to tour Brussels in, according to Moinil \u2014 and several thousand users were penalized. By Thursday, the prosecutor\u2019s office had also seized \u20ac203 million from criminals in the capital.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are working tirelessly with limited resources, since I have not received any additional funding at all despite this crisis,\u201d continued Moinil. He noted that the \u20ac10 million in extra resources he\u2019d requested to step up his fight against drug violence was not \u201cexcessive\u201d compared with the \u20ac203 million already seized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs you can see, this hellish streak, which has been going on for several years, continues,\u201d Moinil said,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[1586,7,18,421,422,235],"class_list":["post-34802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-belgian-politics","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-illicit-drugs","tag-judiciary","tag-security"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/117173327171598646","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}