The fire started in the kitchen one night in August 2020. The police officers dispatched that evening to the first floor of a small building in Brussels quickly noted that no injuries were reported. They also notice that this apartment, rented in the name of a Colombian citizen, is surprisingly Spartan. To be honest, it looks more like the back room of a chemist: in the kitchen, three microwave ovens remained intact despite the blaze; on the ground, where the fire started, tanks of solvents. The four survivors, taking refuge on the upper floor, do not seem relieved to have escaped the worst. While observing one of them, the agents noted another detail: his fingers were coated with a sticky white powder. This man, of Albanian origin, is not a pastry chef. It was in this clandestine laboratory that he transformed liquid cocaine into powder form, ready for sale.
The two couples residing at this address alone are the link between the South American coca plantations and the European market, where Albanian criminal groups now occupy a prominent place. It is written in black and white in a report from the Belgian federal police: “We can assert that MGE and CVM deliberately married Colombian women in order to strengthen their position in the narcotics trade and thus be linked to the cocaine-producing country Colombia. »
The fortuitous identification of this “lab”, where 12 kg of cocaine “extremely pure” were seized, marks the start of a sprawling investigation, carried out for more than two years. A file with drawers which will lead Belgian police officers on the trail of drug traffickers with direct links to Latin America, but also operating in Morocco, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, France and Sweden. Around the Albanian-Colombian “hard core”, led by MGE, 50 years old, the case grew from month to month and led, Monday, December 18, to a resounding trial in Brussels.
One hundred and twenty-five defendants, of fifteen different nationalities, are summoned in a setting commensurate with the case: the Justitia bunker court, installed in the former NATO headquarters, all in reinforced concrete, at the outskirts of the Belgian capital. It was necessary to accommodate such a cast. According to a police source, “the investigation made it possible to identify “high value targets”, but also henchmen, logisticians, people who recover a cargo, others who rent their services at a given moment, still others who propose a hitman or a gang responsible for intimidating someone”. “Indoor” cannabis producers, landlords and nominees are also part of the list, not forgetting the owner of a chip shop, an influencer, and even a police officer suspected of corruption.
You have 75% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.