Belgian «cocaineberg» has grown too big to burn

One of Luxembourg’s neighbors and a member of the Benelux is facing a non-trivial problem. So much cocaine has been seized in the port of Antwerp over the past two years that it simply can’t be destroyed quickly. The growing mountain of drugs has even received a nickname — ‘cocaineberg’.

In 2021 alone, Belgian customs seized 90 tons of the banned white powder. This year, a total of more than 100 tons is expected to be seized. The problem is that you can only burn 1.5 tons of the drug at once. The government issued an order to increase the capacity of waste incineration plants, but this does not help either.

Now huge bags of accumulated cocaine are guarded by the police, customs and other services. New employees are being involved in the protection, but this does not guarantee safety of the ‘cocaineberg’. The risk of an armed raid by organized crime groups is growing. And the web is teeming with joke offerings from people all around the world to come to Belgium and help to «deal with the problem.»