National headlines about the recent gang-related shooting in Brussels, and record drug seizures at Antwerp Port – these stories can feel like a faraway world to high-earning workers in the Belgian capital who may indulge in a line of cocaine from time to time.
But as Belgium’s national Drugs Commissioner Ine Van Wymersch tells The Brussels Times, these worlds are of course interconnected, stressing that there is no such thing as "fair trade cocaine".
"I’m sorry, your kitchen can be full of fair trade things, but fair trade cocaine just does not exist," she says emphatically. "You don’t see it from here, when you are in your nice office and just need one line of cocaine to survive the next deadline or to produce a good report. But you have to know that when you buy illegal drugs you are financing a criminal organisation," she adds.
We speak in the Drug Commissioner’s office, nestled on one of the upper floors of a vast government building in Brussels city centre.
From outside on the street, it does not seem like a lot is going on. Several people are sleeping rough in the sheltered alcoves of the office block’s entrance, and there is no sign to indicate that inside is Belgium’s top team assembled to co-ordinate the fight against organised crime.
The exact location of the Drugs Commissioner’s office is kept secret for security reasons, her colleagues explain as they escort me up in the elevator. The team of six that work for Van Wymersch also keep a low profile (better to "have just one face to protect", she says).
Belgium a 'victim of its success'
Although Belgium is one of the smallest countries in the EU, it punches above its weight on the global stage as a political, economic and logistical hub.
"We’re at the crossroads, it’s like a railway station. Everyone has to pass through Belgium," says Van Wymersch. "Unfortunately that has a shadow side, where criminal organisations are seeing the use and profit of being active in Belgium," she adds.
Latest figures from the European Union Drugs Agency show that 323 tonnes of cocaine were seized by authorities in EU Member States in 2022. More than a third of the total (111 tonnes) was seized in Belgium.
As criminal gangs battle to gain control of the lucrative illegal drugs market, drug-related violence in Belgium, particularly around Antwerp Port and in the capital, has been escalating.
A spate of four shootings over three days in Porte de Hal earlier this year led to some calls for the army to be deployed on the city streets – a suggestion which was swiftly dismissed in favour of a co-ordinated policing effort across 15 "hotspots" in Brussels.
In January 2023, an eleven year old girl Firdaous was killed by a stray bullet in a drug-related shooting in Antwerp. Outcry over her death is what prompted the Belgian government to create the new role of Drugs Commissioner, and hand the reins to former public prosecutor Van Wymersch.
After studying law, Van Wymersch completed an internship with the Brussels police, following in the footsteps of her father, former chief of police in the Brussels Capital/Ixelles zone Guido Van Wymersch.
She went on to work as a public prosecutor in Brussels for almost ten years, and became Chief Prosecutor for the Halle-Vilvoorde region in 2019, before taking up the newly minted role of Drugs Commissioner in April 2023.
The independent unit is funded by four different Federal Government departments: home affairs (which oversees the police), justice, finance (which manages customs) and public health.
Newly appointed Drugs Commissioner Ine Van Wymersch pictured in Antwerp in February of last year, during the signing of a declaration on the fight against cross-border organised drug crime. Credit: Belga / David Pintens.
Uniting society in fight against organised crime
Van Wymersch says this illustrates the nature of her role, which is to "get people around the table" from across different departments and sectors of society to form common strategies and hatch new ideas to tackle organised crime.
She likens criminal organisations to an iceberg. One way to try and get rid of the iceberg is by hacking directly at the ice – with law enforcement making arrests, raiding houses, or confiscating goods.
"If we limit the fight against organised crime towards this direct approach, we will be exhausted in the end, and we will never have enough resources [to win]," she says.
Another option is to take a structural approach, get not just law enforcement but all public and private stakeholders on board, and make the environment increasingly difficult for criminals to operate in.
She gives the example of vehicle manufacturers making it more difficult for smugglers to find hidden spaces for drugs, or making it easier for civilians to anonymously report suspicious activity in their neighbourhoods.
"If we implicate all the stakeholders that have an impact on the temperature of the water, the iceberg will melt, and you will create a new environment where no new iceberg can grow," she says.
"We have to give people the tools to be part of the direct approach if they want, in a safe way, but on the other hand we also want to give people, organisations, and authorities the tools to have an impact on the temperature of the water," she adds.
Some might argue that setting up the Drugs Commissioner role in the wake of the tragic shooting of a young girl was just for show, a gesture by the government with little substance behind it.
"The reaction was quick, and there were some sceptics who thought with the role being created the government can say they’ve done something. But of course, that’s not our ambition. They have created us, and now we are independent. So we are undertaking action," Van Wymersch says with a determined smile.
"Drug fund" for proceeds of crime
Up and running for just over a year now, Van Wymersch’s office has already taken historic strides to tackle drug-related organised crime and its impacts on wider Belgian society.
Take for example her work to direct the proceeds of drug-related crime seized by the state towards fighting those criminals.
"Belgium does not have an asset recovery system in place. When we seize valuable goods or money from criminals, it goes to the federal budget, there is no dedicated link to investments in the fight against organised crime,” she explains.
Last year she convinced the Federal Government to release €10 million from the federal budget to go towards tackling organised crime. Van Wymersch says that more than 100 initiatives and projects applied for a share in the funding to go towards different strategies and solutions.
She adds that if the incoming government were to ring-fence all drug-related criminal proceeds for initiatives specifically targeting organised crime, it could create a "drug fund" of around €40 million per year.
Over the past year Van Wymersch has also been keenly focused on making life difficult for drug smugglers in Antwerp Port, as well as other major sea and air gateways across the country.
Tackling smugglers at Antwerp Port
Last year saw a record 116 tonnes of cocaine seized at Antwerp Port, but latest reports from the Belgian customs authority reveal that in the first six months of 2024, while the number of drug busts in and around Antwerp has remained the same, the volume of seizures is falling.
Without knowing the "dark number" of how many tonnes of illegal drugs smugglers manage to sneak past authorities, Van Wymersch says it is difficult to interpret what the level of reported seizures means.
"If you don’t look for drugs, you will not find any, and you can conclude 'ah, no drugs' which is wrong. If you seize a lot, it can also mean different things: either you are very effective, or there is just an awful lot coming in. You don’t know what the dark number is so you cannot make useful conclusions," she said.
Authorities in Antwerp seize so much cocaine that they struggle to dispose of it all, as incinerators can only process a limited amount per session before the cocaine damages the filters.
In the meantime, the storage and transport of seized drugs creates a security issue, as port workers are targeted by criminal gangs seeking to regain their intercepted cargo.
Coming up with solutions to tackle smuggling and security in the vast port (the second largest in Europe) is a joint effort, between the Drugs Commissioner office as well as the police, public prosecutor, customs officials, the Mayor of Antwerp as well as the Antwerp-Bruges Port authority.
The Flemish Government has already put in place a "fast lane" for seized cocaine to be destroyed within hours of it being confiscated by authorities, and Van Wymersch says they are working on a solution to cut this wait time down to almost zero.
At the suggestion of the Drugs Commissioner and funded by the Flemish Government, a team of scientists are now developing a process that will chemically neutralise drugs immediately once they are seized, and make them "useless powder" to smugglers.
"Then the criminal organisations know that when the Belgian authorities seize your cocaine, it’s lost, and it makes no sense to try to take it back and to attack people. So the security risk to custom agents goes down, and the storage of seized cocaine is not such a big security and safety issue anymore," says Van Wymersch.
Hopes for incoming government
Looking to the future and what she hopes to see from the next government when it is formed, Van Wymersch feels strongly that young people in Belgium who have been "lost" from the system should not be left vulnerable to being recruited by criminal gangs.
Having previously worked in juvenile crime as a Public Prosecutor, Van Wymersch explains that there is a huge group of young people in the city, from as young as nine or ten, who may be unaccompanied or without a legal right to stay in the country, or who may have dropped out of school or the system particularly during the pandemic.
"We cannot accept that we have 'lost' generations. They are not lost, they are here, and they are not going to disappear, and they are so vulnerable to be recruited by criminal organisations to commit organised crime," she says. "We need to start to look at them as children who deserve a future, who deserve protection, and this is something that Brussels, Belgium, and Europe need to work on," she adds.
Van Wymersch is also strong in her view that there needs to be a crackdown on how criminals operate in the online world, highlighting that with no regulation, the internet is really a "playground for criminal organisations."
Currently, an investigating judge in Belgium can – if they have enough evidence to justify it – gain access to the real time telephone conversations of someone involved in a case. However this does not extend to encrypted communications online.
While she understands that people want to protect their right to privacy, she argues that if criminals are allowed to operate freely on these platforms there will be nothing left to protect.
"If you don't say that in certain circumstances with all the checks and balances, law enforcement can have access [to encrypted communication], we will come to a moment where criminal organisations have taken over and we have to forbid any kind of encrypted communication - and then you have a problem," she says.
A year into the new job, Van Wymersch admits that tackling Belgium’s shadowy web of organised criminals can seem like an elephantine task.
But how do you eat an elephant? Bite by bite. "We make some progress, and then step back and say ‘oh my god look at this huge elephant that we have to eat’. But then you have to come back together, and say okay, what is the next step, the next part to cut off," she says.
