Major Drug Trafficking Trial Opens in Brussels, Linking Morocco to European Networks

A total of 124 people are being tried starting this Monday, and this for several months in the correctional court relocated to the Justitia, the former NATO headquarters converted into a highly secure judicial arena, for participation in a criminal organization, violation of drug legislation, arms trafficking, etc. Not to mention the four companies established in Belgium, suspected of being devoted solely to the concealment of illicit activities. The defendants are accused of having transported drugs in containers from South America and Morocco, via the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Le Havre, before distributing them throughout the European continent, reports RTL.

The facts with which they are charged took place between January 2017 and November 2022. They are also accused of having operated all the cocaine transformation laboratories discovered on Belgian soil. Some defendants are on the run and will be tried in absentia, while others appear free. Most have been in preventive detention in Belgium since their arrest, it is specified. The judgment is expected after mid-2024.

Information intercepted on Encrochat and Sky ECC allowed the Belgian police to dismantle this vast network with the collaboration of their counterparts in Italy and Germany. The 200 simultaneous searches carried out in Belgium on March 9, 2021 following the decryption of Sky ECC were "the largest police operation ever undertaken" in Belgium, recalled Justice Minister Paul Van Tigchelt on the eve of the trial. For their part, defense lawyers criticize the procedure. "We’re trying to imitate the big Italian mafia trials, it’s a kind of PR stunt!" grumbled Guillaume Lys, lawyer for a Brussels defendant. And to estimate: In this mega-trial there are "dozens of cases that should have been tried separately".