Fourteen suspects arrested in Great Drug Survey: Flemish family arranged input of drugs via the port of Antwerp (Binnenland)

The investigation into the criminal organization started in October 2023. The police had received information that members of a family from Mechelen would be active in international drug trafficking.

« The family would form a criminal organization that could rely on a wide network in and around the port of Antwerp, » says spokesperson Kristof Aerts of the Antwerp Public Prosecutor’s Office. That information soon turned out to be correct when four family members were spotted together in a Mechels Hotel. The investigators saw how a 34-year-old man took a leadership position at that meeting.

Two thirties

The further investigation by FGP Antwerp sculpted a second pivotal figure, a 39-year-old man from Beveren-Kruibeke-Zwijndrecht. « The two people in their thirties would work together in that criminal network to actively recruit, manipulate and threaten people in the port or in a transport world, » says Aerts.

« That would be about family members, but also people in crucial positions. They used advanced, encrypted communication and also use a technical intermediary for this, » says Aerts.

The network had control over several quays in the port of Antwerp. « Through various contacts, the suspects would have essential logistics and operational information necessary for organizing their criminal activities, » says Aerts.

Fourteen arrests

On Thursday, the police carried out about thirty house searches: about twenty with the Mechelen family and eight house searches in the related investigation into the criminal organization around the 39-year-old man from Beveren-Kruibeke-Zwijndrecht and his 38-year-old brother. Those two brothers were already in sight of the investigators via Operation Sky.

« In the house searches, a total of more than 150 police officers were deployed. The searches took place in Antwerp, Beveren-Kruibeke-Zwijndrecht, Bruges, Duffel, Leuven, Mechelen, Merksem, Mortsel, Rumst, Sint-Niklaas and Wilrijk and in port terminals, » List Aerts op. One of the house searches took place in the Antwerp Begijnenstraat, the Speurders also visited the prison of Bruges.

Fourteen people have been arrested. Five vehicles, a boxing bracket, cash money, a luxury watch, a crypto getal card, a money slot machine and many mobile phones were also seized. The police also found a limited amount of drugs.

The suspects appear in the next phase for the investigating judge, who must decide on their further arrest.