{"id":541871,"date":"2025-11-01T10:51:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:51:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/541871\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T10:51:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T10:51:29","slug":"is-spain-in-danger-of-becoming-a-narco-state-like-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/541871\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Spain in danger of becoming a ‘narco state’ like Belgium?"},"content":{"rendered":"

SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Belgium \u2013 and the stench is emanating from the country\u2019s largest port.<\/strong><\/p>\n

An investigating judge in Antwerp recently broke his silence to warn that Belgium is \u2018becoming a narco-state\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He spoke anonymously for fear of his life in a letter, verified by Politico Europe and The Brussels Times, that carries more weight than the usual chirpings of the chattering classes.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> How the Portuguese navy foiled a high-seas narco-jacking of container ship travelling notorious cocaine highway to Malaga<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"One hundred and sixteen tonnes of cocaine were seized at the Port of Antwerp in 2023<\/p>\n

In it he described a country where cocaine cartels have embedded themselves so deeply in the state\u2019s machinery that they now form a \u2018parallel power\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The judge painted a portrait of Belgium\u2019s second city, Antwerp, as Europe\u2019s new Medell\u00edn: a port riddled with corruption, where dockworkers are bribed for \u20ac100,000 to move a single container, and where judges and police live under protection after a wave of kidnappings, assassinations and bomb attacks linked to drug clans.<\/p>\n

The investigating judge \u2013 roughly equivalent to a chief magistrate who also directs criminal investigations \u2013 warned that criminal organisations have penetrated every layer of public life.<\/p>\n

Customs officers, police, municipal staff, even members of the judiciary, he said, had been compromised. \u201cWe have lost control. We are becoming a narco-state,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> \u2018That\u2019s how you deal with narco traffickers\u2019: Spain\u2019s police union stokes controversy by lauding US strike on drug boat that killed 11<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"An Antwerp judge has written a letter claiming Belgium is becoming a narco state<\/p>\n

His words have set alarm bells ringing across the capitals of the European Union \u2013 but nowhere should they ring louder than in Spain.<\/p>\n

Because if Antwerp is the northern gateway for Europe\u2019s cocaine, Spain is its southern one \u2013 and many of the same warning signs are already flashing red.<\/p>\n

The Port of Antwerp seized 116 tonnes of cocaine in 2023, up slightly from 2022.<\/p>\n

But in the same period, Spain intercepted 117 tonnes; a haul which constituted a massive doubling of the quantity seized the year before.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s Prosecutor\u2019s Office Report for 2024 lays out, in sober bureaucratic prose, what the Belgian judge described in panic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> WATCH: Police frogmarch one of Europe\u2019s most wanted narco kingpins out of his luxury villa on Spain\u2019s southern coast<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"There are fears that Spain could suffer the same fate as Belgium is facing \u2013 and become a narco state <\/p>\n

The country\u2019s three main ports \u2013 Valencia, Barcelona and Algeciras \u2013 have become key entry points for Latin American cocaine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report admits that \u2018non-anecdotal\u2019 cases of corruption among port workers and police officers have been uncovered, including Guardia Civil agents charged with laundering drug money and customs staff caught collaborating with traffickers.<\/p>\n

In Algeciras, prosecutors warn that the criminal economy has become so entrenched that narco-networks now employ logistics managers, drone operators, and accountants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like Belgium, Spain\u2019s law enforcement is also under siege.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The report notes a steep rise in violence, with traffickers in the Strait of Gibraltar ramming police boats and opening fire on patrols in the Guadalquivir river.<\/p>\n

At the same time, international gangsters murder one another on the streets of Marbella and Fuengirola, in a geographical neighbourhood that is becoming known as the Costa del Sol triangle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> \u2018Narco traffickers who threaten Spain must be treated the same as ETA terrorists,\u2019 claims Andalucia president<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Barcelona port is another that has had a chequered past with infiltration by narco traffickers<\/p>\n

Even the methods are the same. Both countries have struggled with encrypted communication systems like EncroChat and Sky ECC, which prosecutors say enabled vast criminal networks to coordinate shipments and assassinations across borders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Belgian investigators were among the first to exploit decrypted data from those networks; Spain now uses the same material in more than a hundred prosecutions, according to the National Court.<\/p>\n

In both nations, the cartels\u2019 preferred weapon is corruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Antwerp judge accused his government of complacency \u2013 of letting cartels \u2018buy peace\u2019 through bribes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s prosecutors, though less dramatic, concede that corruption \u2018facilitates criminal penetration\u2019 of port infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Month of carnage on the Costa del Sol: One Brit among the executed as narco violence returns to grip the region<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Algeciras is Spain\u2019s biggest port \u2013 and was also home to its biggest drugs haul of 13 tonnes of cocaine in October 2024<\/p>\n

They cite recent convictions of Guardia Civil officers in Algeciras and Cartagena for aiding smugglers and laundering profits.<\/p>\n

More shockingly, Spanish authorities arrested the head of the Policia Nacional\u2019s economic-crimes unit in Madrid last year in connection with a record seizure of 13 tonnes of cocaine hidden in a container of bananas at the port of Algeciras.<\/p>\n

When they searched the home of Oscar Sanchez Gil, investigators found \u20ac20 million in cash hidden in the walls, along with a fleet of luxury cars parked outside in the driveway.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The arrests paint a grimly familiar picture: under-resourced front line officers, an overstretched justice system, porous ports, and a class of underworld gangsters growing rich off Europe\u2019s insatiable demand for cocaine.<\/p>\n

Yet Spanish prosecutors point out one crucial difference that separates their country from Belgium\u2019s nightmare scenario.<\/p>\n

\"\"The head of the Policia Nacional\u2019s economic-crimes unit, Oscar Sanchez Gil, was arrested in Madrid last year for corruption.<\/p>\n

Where the Belgian magistrate admits defeat in the face of the narcos, Spain\u2019s most recent Prosecutor\u2019s Office Report not only acknowledges the threat; it documents the counterattacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It describes the implementation of a national asset-recovery protocol, the expansion of international cooperation through Eurojust, and the validation by Spain\u2019s highest courts of EncroChat evidence \u2014 allowing judges to dismantle the encrypted empires that once made traffickers untouchable.<\/p>\n

It also names its own weaknesses openly: scanner corruption at Malaga port; inadequate inspection rates at Algeciras; and the need to end the culture of \u2018competitiveness\u2019 between ports that has led to security shortcuts.<\/p>\n

Spain\u2019s transparency itself is a form of resilience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The prosecutors\u2019 500-page report details the flaws in their anti-narcotics machinery, but it is evidence that the system is functioning \u2013 still self-correcting in the teeth of the narco challenge to the state.<\/p>\n

\"Narco-boatsA simple one-motor narco boat operating in the Strait of Gibraltar<\/p>\n

By contrast, Belgium\u2019s warning came not from an institution but from an individual in hiding.<\/p>\n

The distinction is telling.<\/p>\n

Both countries sit on the front lines of Europe\u2019s cocaine trade, facing infiltrated ports, corrupt officials and an escalating arms race between cartels and the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Spain still retains what Belgium\u2019s judge fears his country has lost: the confidence that its institutions can fight back.<\/p>\n

Unlike Belgium, where the threats and violence have reached the lawyers, the judges and even the country\u2019s royalty, Spain\u2019s gunfire remains confined to the logistics routes.<\/p>\n

The narco scourge does not extend beyond the narcolanchas of the Campo de Gibraltar, the warehouses of Cadiz and Huelva, and the mafias embedded along the Costa del Sol.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is bloody and brazen, but not yet the random urban terror that has turned parts of Antwerp into war zones.<\/p>\n

The Belgian judge\u2019s phrase \u2018we are becoming a narco-state\u2019 may not apply south of the Pyrenees \u2013 yet.<\/p>\n

Click here to read more International Affairs News<\/a> from The Olive Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOMETHING is rotten in the state of Belgium \u2013 and the stench is emanating from the country\u2019s largest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5312],"tags":[2000,299,18104,8626,104,18106],"class_list":{"0":"post-541871","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-spain","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-news-spain","11":"tag-newspaper","12":"tag-spain","13":"tag-the-olive-press"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115474065107241538","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}