Fabrice Cumps, THE mayor of Anderlecht, is categorical: “This neighborhood is not a lawless area. » At the bottom of Peterbos, a social housing area with eighteen buildings of around ten floors, which has become the main place for drug trafficking in the Belgian capital, supermarket trolleys are piled up, with the obvious aim of delaying a intervention of the local police.
In broad daylight, you can walk without difficulty in this neighborhood where you can spot a vegetable garden, a playground and a skateboard track, at least if you don’t try to get there by car: this morning of February 28, a delivery man is arrested by two hooded teenagers, and forced to show his papers and identity card. Further on, a kid who is not yet 14 plays lookout.
According to a well-known practice, it is there to alert sellers. They now operate day and night at the bottom of buildings with 6,000 inhabitants, depending on their specialization: cocaine, cannabis, crack, heroin, etc. “They won’t bother you if you don’t ask them questions. But don’t tell them you’re a journalist.”, warns a walker pulling a shopping cart. She refuses to be named but says she witnessed, two weeks ago, the car of two Dutch-speaking reporters being spotted because of of a camera.
Two thousand arrests in six months
The police men ? “Yes, we see them sometimes, continues this resident. But when they arrest kids, they are replaced the next day. Traffic brings in too much money for the bosses…” Eric Jacobs, head of the federal judicial police in Brussels, confided, in the summer of 2023, that the bigwigs of the networks working in this sector would live “in Dubai, Turkey or Albania”. These men, in contact with South American cartels, would now also use the Belgian capital as a hub. The drugs, coming from the port of Antwerp, would be sold there in large quantities, but also shipped to other countries.
“These gangs recruit minors, illegal immigrants, drug addicts,” explains Mr. Cumps, at the head of a town which has also experienced shootings in recent months. In September 2023, a particularly violent settling of scores took place: four men armed with Kalashnikovs machine-gunned the driver of a car with seventeen bullets, before setting their own vehicle on fire. The Midi police zone, of which Anderlecht is a part, has made 2,000 drug-related arrests in the last six months.
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