Belgium’s Narco Paradox: How Europe’s Political Heart Became a Criminal Crossroads

On January 9, 2023, just after 6:30 p.m., gunmen opened fire on a garage door in a quiet Belgian neighborhood. Authorities initially described it as a routine settling of scores between drug traffickers—tragic, but familiar in the world of organized crime. Then came the detail that changed everything. Behind that garage door was an 11-year-old girl. She was killed instantly.

Told plainly, the story sounds like it belongs in an episode of Narcos, or in reporting from cartel-controlled neighborhoods in Latin America. Instead, it happened in Belgium—a country long associated with stability, bureaucracy, and the quiet dignity of being Europe’s political center. This is the same Belgium that hosts the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the European Union. The same Belgium tourists associate with chocolate, beer, and orderly streets.

But beneath that calm exterior, something else has taken root. Belgium has become one of Europe’s most important hubs for organized crime.

Why Belgium?

At first glance, Belgium doesn’t look like an obvious candidate for becoming a narco hotspot. It isn’t particularly large. It doesn’t have widespread poverty. It doesn’t suffer from endemic corruption in the way some countries do. And yet, officials estimate that more than 100 of Europe’s most dangerous criminal networks operate there.

The reason is almost disappointingly simple: Belgium is perfectly positioned.

Look at a map of Europe and Belgium sits like a jewel wedged between economic giants—France, Germany, and the Netherlands—just across the water from the UK, and a stone’s throw from Luxembourg, one of the wealthiest countries on Earth. These are massive consumer markets filled with people who can afford expensive habits. For drug traffickers, it’s prime real estate.

Then there’s Antwerp.

Antwerp: Europe’s Cocaine Capital

Antwerp is home to Europe’s second-largest port, and one of the busiest inland ports in the world. Every year, millions of shipping containers move through it carrying legitimate goods. So many, in fact, that inspecting them all is physically impossible.

For years, Belgian authorities leaned toward efficiency over scrutiny. Slowing down port operations to inspect containers would cost money. Letting cargo flow freely generated profit. Prior to 2021, only about 1 in every 42 containers—less than 2.4%—was scanned.

That gap didn’t go unnoticed.

Organized crime groups learned Antwerp inside and out. They identified corruptible port workers, figured out how to track specific containers, and perfected methods for extracting illicit goods before inspections could occur. Soon, Antwerp wasn’t just moving consumer goods. It was moving cocaine—along with weapons, diamonds, illegal timber, and even human beings.

And cocaine, more than anything else, changed the game.

Europe’s Cocaine Boom

Between 2011 and 2021, the European cocaine market didn’t just grow—it exploded, expanding by 416%, according to the European Commission. While American cocaine consumption declined, global production surged in the mid-2010s. Mexican cartels consolidated control over the U.S. market, leaving other Latin American crime groups scrambling to diversify.

Europe was the perfect alternative.

A kilogram of cocaine that sold for around $28,000 in the United States could fetch $40,000 in Europe. From there, distribution routes extended into the Middle East and Asia. Italian mafias, Balkan cartels, Moroccan networks, Turkish groups, Russians, and Albanians all collaborated to build a transcontinental pipeline.

Antwerp paid the price.

In 2021, nearly 90 tons of cocaine were seized at the port. In 2022, that number rose to 110 tons. In 2023, 116 tons. That’s more cocaine than U.S. customs seized during the same period—despite the United States being vastly larger.

And those were only the shipments that got caught.

Fighting Back—and Falling Behind

Belgian authorities haven’t been idle. The 2021 hack of the encrypted Sky ECC phone network led to mass arrests across Europe. Corruption investigations swept up everyone from port workers to the chief police inspector on Antwerp’s drug task force. Port security tightened. Surveillance increased.

By 2024, cocaine seizures dropped sharply to 44 tons—roughly one-third of the previous year.

At first glance, that looks like progress. But officials aren’t celebrating.

As Belgian customs bluntly put it, seizures are down, but interceptions are up. Criminals are shipping smaller quantities through more routes, testing defenses and adapting faster than authorities can respond. One Antwerp judge warned in a 2025 letter that Belgium is drifting toward “a narco state,” where corruption, illicit economies, and violence become normalized.

And that violence is no longer hidden.

A Climate of Fear

Belgian officials now speak about organized crime in language once reserved for cartel states. Former Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever warned in 2022 that drug money was poisoning real estate and hospitality. Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne went into hiding with his family after receiving death threats from traffickers.

Customs officers avoid being photographed. The national drug commissioner keeps her office location secret. Prosecutors operate under armed protection. In 2025, authorities foiled an Albanian mafia plot to assassinate Brussels’ chief prosecutor.

And the violence is spilling outward.

In 2024 alone, Brussels saw 92 shootings, nearly a 50% increase from the year before, resulting in nine deaths. Some gangs have gone so far as to raid customs facilities to recover seized cocaine, prepared to kill officers if necessary. Explosions—often targeting family members of arrested dealers—have become another grim hallmark of turf wars.

What’s perhaps most disturbing is who is being used to carry out this violence.

Children as Shields

Organized crime groups in Belgium increasingly outsource violence to minors. Children as young as 12 years old are recruited as lookouts, couriers, dealers, warehouse workers—and sometimes killers.

The strategy is coldly logical. Young offenders attract lighter sentences and create distance between high-level bosses and the crimes themselves.

The most vulnerable are often unaccompanied migrant children, particularly from Morocco, Algeria, and Afghanistan. Many are coerced under threats of torture or sexual violence if they fail to meet quotas. They are, in effect, disposable.

The 11-year-old girl killed behind that garage door wasn’t just collateral damage. She was a symbol of how far the violence has spread.

Perspective Matters—but So Does History

It’s important not to exaggerate. Belgium is not Mexico. It is not Brazil.

Belgium’s homicide rate in 2023 stood at 1.38 per 100,000 people—high for the EU, but far lower than the United States’ 6.8, and nowhere near Brazil’s 19 or Mexico’s 25. In a country of nearly 12 million people, there were 1,461 murders and attempted murders in 2024.

For tourists, Belgium remains overwhelmingly safe.

But context cuts both ways. By Belgian historical standards, this is alarming. Violence that once seemed unthinkable is becoming routine. And structural weaknesses make it hard to respond.

A Government Built to Stall

Belgium’s political system is famously complex. Power is split between a federal government, three language-based communities, and three regions—each with its own parliaments and councils. Political consensus is notoriously hard to achieve.

At times, it collapses entirely. Belgium went 541 days without a federal government between 2018 and 2020. Brussels itself spent over a year without a functioning regional government beginning in 2024.

Caretaker administrations keep the lights on, but they can’t pass new policies or respond effectively to crises. Organized crime thrives in exactly this kind of paralysis.

Even policing suffers. Brussels is divided into six police zones, long resistant to permanent unification due to local autonomy disputes. Temporary mergers happen only after violence spikes—an approach that treats symptoms, not causes.

When International Help Doesn’t Help

Belgium’s problems don’t stop at its borders. Organized crime is global, and cooperation depends on partners who don’t always cooperate.

The UAE has become a notorious safe haven for European drug traffickers, slow-walking extraditions or ignoring them altogether. Turkey’s citizenship-by-investment scheme has allowed traffickers to shield themselves from extradition entirely. These loopholes undermine years of investigative work.

Belgium can arrest dealers at home. It cannot easily touch the masterminds abroad.

A Race Against Time

Belgium’s organized crime problem didn’t appear overnight, and it won’t disappear quickly. Geography, global demand, political fragmentation, and international safe havens all stack the deck against easy solutions.

Still, the outcome isn’t predetermined.

With sufficient funding, genuine political cooperation, smarter port security, and international pressure on safe-haven states, Belgium can slow the tide. But until the cost of doing business outweighs the reward, Europe’s crossroads will remain exactly that—a crossroads for organized crime.

Belgium has time. But history suggests that window doesn’t stay open forever.