Members of cocaine smuggling gang given sentences of up to 13 years
A Judge at the Criminal Court in Antwerp has found 23 members of a drug trafficking gang guilty of having smuggled 6 tonnes of cocaine into the country through the port of Antwerp. The members of the gang were given prison sentences of up to 13 years and fined up to 200,000 euro. 30 million euro in ill-gotten gains was confiscated by the court.
The members of the gang were found guilty of having smuggled 6 tonnes of cocaine through Antwerp docks between November 2020 and May 2021. The drugs were smuggled in a total of 16 shipments.
On 15 March 2021 a lorry driver was detained. The trucker had gone to the port to collect a container in which customs officers had found 818 kilos of cocaine. During the investigation and thanks to information gained from the hacking of the encrypted Sky ECC messaging system detectives traced the shipment to a criminal gang. The gang had smuggled a total of 6,444 kilos of cocaine through the port of Antwerp. 1.7 tonnes of this have been seized by customs and police.
Gang leader in Dubai
The leader of the drug trafficking gang, a man from the Antwerp district of Merksem that is currently living in Dubai, was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment and fined 200,000 euro. 5.5 million euro in cash, property and goods belonging to the man were also confiscated by the court.
His right-hand men, two brothers from the Antwerp district of Deurne were sentenced to 11 and 12 years respectively and both fined 200,000 euro. The court confiscated goods, cash and property worth 6 million and 6.2 million euro for the two brothers. They too are currently residing in Dubai.
The gang’s customers were Dutch and Albanian drugs gangs. The head of an Albanian drug gang was sentenced to 12 years and fined 200,000 euro. Property, goods and cash belong to him worth 2.8 million euro were confiscated by the court.