{"id":372,"date":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/372\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:02:12","slug":"belgium-is-basically-a-narco-state-top-antwerp-judge-warns-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/372\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgium is basically a narco-state, top Antwerp judge warns \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Belgium \u2014 and Europe more widely. Brussels, the country’s capital, has been plagued by a spate of drug-related shootings<\/a>, with more than 60 incidents this year alone, 20 of them occurring just this summer. <\/p>\n

In response to the bloodbath, Belgium\u2019s Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said he wants to deploy soldiers on the streets of Brussels<\/a>. Earlier this year, the Belgian government approved a merger of Brussels\u2019 six police zones into a single unit, set to take effect in early 2027, to tackle the scourge of violence.<\/p>\n

In the anonymous letter, the judge goes on to note that a narco-state is characterized by an illegal economy, corruption and violence \u2014 conditions that Belgium fulfills, in the judge’s opinion. The judge notes that money-laundering networks drive up real-estate costs, the corruption penetrates state institutions and kidnappings can be ordered on Snapchat.<\/p>\n

“This bribery seeps into our institutions. The cases I have led in recent years \u2014 and I am just one of 17 investigative judges in Antwerp \u2014 have resulted in arrests of employees in key port positions, customs officers, police officers, municipal clerks, and, regrettably, even justice system staff, both inside prisons and right here in this building,” the judge’s letter reads.<\/p>\n

“A home attack with a bomb or weapons of war, a home invasion, or a kidnapping are all easily ordered online. You don’t even need to go to the dark web; a Snapchat account is all it takes,” the judge added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Belgium \u2014 and Europe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,7,420,421,422,423],"class_list":["post-372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-belgium","tag-brussels-bubble","tag-illicit-drugs","tag-judiciary","tag-law-enforcement"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372","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=372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}