The biggest cocaine trafficking operation set up in Brussels operated during the pandemic and distributed drugs across Europe from 2020 to 2021, reports La Derniere Hèure. The Brussels federal judicial police has identified 53 people who were involved.
The network had four main addresses in Brussels, where tons of cocaine were cut and prepared into blocks. These were then shipped to France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Austria, and other countries.
At one of the addresses, just a four-minute walk from Flagey Square in Ixelles, investigators found 155 kilograms of cocaine – worth around €8 million in street value – and several barrels of a solvent used in its production.
The traffickers were using the EncroChat communication network, which encrypts conversations between users and was widely used by organized crime networks since 2016. The police managed to hack the network in 2020 and gained information about the Brussels-based drug trafficking operation.
The leaders of the operation were two men who went by the aliases of “Zidane 2” and “Mbappé”. They were surveilled by the police, who saw them drive expensive cars and used concealed spaces in these vehicles to transport tens of kilograms of cocaine and cannabis resin.
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The trafficking network was connected to several drug seizures across Europe and beyond. These include 220 kilograms of cannabis resin concealed in a soap container, found in Morocco in 2021, and half a ton of white powder which reacted positively to cocaine when tested, found in a storage box on Avenue de l’Exposition in Jette. A cannabis farm with 3,000 plants in Rochefort, Belgium is also connected to the case.
La Derniere Hèure reveals a verbatim transcript of a wiretapped phone call made in May 2021, about the network’s leader: "The biggest guy here in Belgium is him."
