Alleged British cocaine gang faces Belgium trial

Belgian prosecutors on Wednesday ordered 22 suspects, 12 of them British, to face trial on charges related to cocaine smuggling through the port of Antwerp.

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The Antwerp prosecutor’s office said the trial, which follows 2021 raids targeting an alleged British drug network, will take place in the coming months.

Antwerp is Europe’s third busiest port and, according to EU law enforcement experts now the main gateway for Latin American cocaine into the continent, with 110 tonnes seized last year.

The city is plagued by violence connected to the trade, which is carried out by international gangs such as the Netherlands’ “Mocro Maffia” and, in this case, a British connection.

In November 2021, Belgian police sized 580 kilos of cocaine in a raid on a house in Kalmthout, outside Antwerp and next to a heathland nature reserve that straddles the Dutch border.

Six British men from the Greater London area were quickly arrested in connection with the find, and at least 16 more suspects have been picked up in the course of the investigation.

Prosecutors believe they can prove that the British gang brought several major shipments of cocaine through the port of Antwerp, storing it in properties rented from online platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com .

Now 22 suspects aged between 21 and 54 — 12 Britons, eight Belgians, a Dutch citizen and another from Surinam — have been arraigned before the Antwerp criminal court.

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