The youngest was 13 years old: already twice as many minors who play drugs in Antwerp harbor as in the whole of 2024
The youngest was thirteen years old. And the federal police often find Piepjonge rollers in the port of Antwerp. Most are 16 or 17 years old, but sporadically also 15 years or younger. It is a sad evolution. In the early months of 2025, the police already picked up 31 minor elderly on a total of 129 arrests. For comparison, in the entire year 2024 there were only sixteen.
« Since the end of last year we see that smaller parties drugs are being smuggled into the port and that small groups are constantly being picked up, » the police say. « Vulnerable young people are recruited by criminal groups to penetrate the harbor domain. If they are picked up, other implementers will soon be ready. »
It is not a purely Antwerp or even Belgian phenomenon. Europol sets up a task force of eight countries – including in addition to Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany – to compete with “crime-a-a-service« Young people, often from a disadvantaged environment, receive a small sum of money or things like a smartphone to take out drugs or to deliver other » services « . That varies from the lookout for police to even committing violence. The drug lordons run a lot less risk of turning up themselves for the facts.
“Vulnerable young people are recruited by criminal groups to penetrate the harbor domain. If they are arrested, other implementers will soon be ready”
Federal police
The phenomenon is politically on the agenda. Minister of Justice Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) is tinkering with a bill to punish gangs who have minors do their running its walking stricter. « Those minors sometimes participate in drug activities in all ignorance, they are sometimes not at all aware of the penalties on it, » she says. « And if you get into a criminal network quickly and young, it is difficult to get out of it. »
Minister of Justice Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) wants more heavier penalties for criminals who engage minors for their dirt work. – © Belga/Belpress
Now that drug gangs increasingly engage minors, that also means that more minors will have to go to a youth institution. According to the most recent figures, the number of recordings for a youth offense has already risen sharply. In 2022 it was 736 recordings, already in 2023 863. The alarming trend that the police see today will not do well.
Read too. How drugs were once promising medicines, until the side effects became too much
Flemish Minister for Justice Zuhal Demir (N-VA) will soon be given the full authority about youth delinquency, which she is still sharing with her colleague of Welzijn Caroline Gennez (Vooruit). Demir points out that many of the rollers come to Antwerp from the Netherlands. « For example, in 2023, forty minor Dutch people were placed in Flemish community institutions, while they are already under pressure. If a youth delinquency is completely transferred to me, I want to reform the operation of those institutions. In the meantime, we are going to exchange information better together with the Dutch colleagues and have their young criminals return faster. »
In addition, a project is running in Antwerp in which 28 minor criminals were given an ankle band in 2024. « We continue that line, » says Demir. « They may stay in their home environment, but must avoid certain neighborhoods or squares. »
