The case concerns vast international trafficking in cocaine and cannabis, dismantled by the Belgian police in collaboration with those of Italy and Germany. The drugs were transported in containers from South America and Morocco respectively, via the ports of Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Le Havre. Before being sold throughout the European continent.
The proceedings are due to open at 8:45 a.m. in front of the criminal court relocated to Justitia, the former NATO headquarters converted into an ultra-secure judicial enclosure. The trial was supposed to start in early November, but suffered several false starts due to a request to recuse the court’s judges. This request from several defense lawyers was ultimately rejected.
The facts prosecuted relate to the period January 2017-November 2022. The prosecution says it has identified different criminal groups, “structured, hierarchical”, presenting between them “illicit commercial links” or “connections”.
They are notably accused of having jointly operated cocaine processing laboratories discovered on Belgian soil. An alleged Albanian leader, an Algerian associate, perpetrators identified on three continents (Europe, South America, Africa): a total of 124 people are on trial. To which are added four companies established in Belgium, suspected of being solely dedicated to concealing illicit activities.
In addition to the seizures made at ports or laboratories, and the confessions obtained from certain suspects, the investigation relied on information intercepted on Encrochat and Sky ECC. These encrypted telephone systems, very popular with criminals, were dismantled in 2020 and 2021 thanks to the joint efforts of the Dutch, French and Belgian police.
“An Italian-style trial”
Some defendants are on the run and will be tried in absentia. Others must appear free. Most have been in preventive detention in Belgium since their arrest.
For the Belgian authorities, this file, nicknamed “Encro”, is one of all superlatives. The 200 searches carried out simultaneously in Belgium on March 9, 2021 following the decoding of Sky ECC were “the largest police operation ever undertaken” in Belgium, recalled the Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt on the eve of the trial.
He stressed that the milestone of “1,000 individual convictions” linked to Sky ECC cases opened before the Belgian courts had just been crossed this month. According to him, there are more than 2,000 accused and nearly 400 cases for the province of Antwerp alone, that of the gigantic Belgian port which has become the first gateway for cocaine into Europe.
“It is clear that we are dealing very hard blows to organized crime in our country,” said this Flemish liberal minister. Participation in a criminal organization, violation of drug legislation, arms trafficking, etc.: around ten offenses are targeted in this trial. There is also question of kidnapping and attempted extortion to the detriment of certain actors in the case.
Defense lawyers joked about the “catch-all” side of the procedure. “We are trying to imitate the major trials of the Italian mafia, it’s a sort of publicity stunt!”, squeaked Guillaume Lys, lawyer for a Brussels defendant.
According to this criminal lawyer, there are “dozens of cases in this mega-trial which should have been judged separately”. The trial is expected to last several months and a judgment is not expected before mid-2024.