Netherlands: A huge amount of cocaine was seized in the port of Rotterdam

In the confiscation of a huge amount cocaine, where exceeds four tons, seized in the port of Rotterdam.

According to the APE-MPE, this amount of drugs, whose sale value was estimated at 301 million euros, found inside container loaded with timber from Suriname to a company in Poland.

“It is not the biggest seizure that has been made, but it is indeed one of the biggest”, said a representative of the prosecutor’s office to the French Agency.

The 4,022 kilos of cocaine that were confiscated were destroyed, the prosecutor’s office clarified in a press release that it published.

THE Netherlands has become one of the main gateways for drugs – especially cocaine – to Europe, mainly through Rotterdam, the largest port on the Old Continent.
A total of 4,600kg of cocaine was seized at the port in 2005, making it “the largest seizure ever recorded” in Rotterdam, according to a spokesman for the prosecution.
The European police agency Europol said in a report earlier this month that Belgium and the Netherlands are the main gateways for cocaine to European markets.

Cocaine trafficking is on the rise, particularly from Colombia, with organized crime gangs using the ports of Rotterdam, Hamburg (Germany) and Antwerp (Belgium) to procure drugs and distribute them primarily from the rest of Europe to the Netherlands. , according to the report of the European Union Agency for Cooperation in the Field of Law Enforcement.

In February, a joint operation by Belgian, Dutch and German law enforcement authorities allowed a record quantity of 23 tonnes of cocaine destined for the Netherlands to be seized in Hamburg and Antwerp.