The port of Rotterdam wants to check all fruit containers from South and Central America in the face of growing drug trafficking

The Dutch municipality of Rotterdam wants to check all containers with tropical fruits from South and Central America for drugs, instead of the current random review that only allows checking “a scant one percent” of the total.

In a letter to the Prime Ministers of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, and Belgium, Alexander De Croo, the Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, explained that the city’s port, the largest in Europe, now only controls “a scant one percent,” but given the growing drug trade“that has to go up to 100 percent.”

According to the Dutch public television, NOS, the mayor sent this letter, confirmed by his colleague from Antwerp, Bart De Wever, after a working visit to Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica, countries of origin and transit for the trafficking of drugs concealed in sea containers arriving in the Netherlands for later distribution in the rest of Europe.

Both aldermen want to increase cooperation with Latin American countries, butro also monitor the flows and networks of criminal money with the help of the police and the judiciary of the countries of origin and transit.

They say they feel “responsible” for fighting drug trafficking, even though they have no formal authority over them, and describe the consequences of this problem in their cities as “frankly disastrous.” “If people snort a line of coke on a Friday night, that also causes blood,” according to Aboutaleb, on the ensuing violence and money laundering.

Tons of drugs in tropical fruit containers

In recent years, large quantities of hidden drugs have been discovered in containers carrying tropical fruits such as mangoes, pineapples and bananas.. Last year, record quantities of cocaine originating in South and Central America were seized, some 90 tons in Antwerp and 70 tons in Rotterdam.

In December, the largest shipment of cocaine seized in 2021 was located, with almost 4,200 kilos hidden in a container of bananas in Rotterdamwhich has a value of about 300 million euros on the street.

Last Thursday, the Dutch authorities also announced the discovery of another shipment with 2,100 kilos of cocaine hidden among mangoes from Peru.

Of all the countries of the European Union, The Netherlands is the country that imports the most fruit, around 30 percent of the totalso a control of all the containers supposes an important additional workload.

An investigation by Erasmus University highlighted in 2019 that, since Rotterdam and Antwerp have a large share in the tropical fruit trade on the European continent, “they almost automatically become the object of drug trafficking.” (I)