The largest of the trials following the dismantling, in 2020, of the Dutch encrypted messaging network EncroChat, in 2020, then of the Canadian cryptophones Sky ECC, in 2021, opened on Friday, June 30, in Brussels: it concerns 125 defendants, 47 of whom are in pre-trial detention. These police operations have delivered a considerable amount of information on criminal networks involved in drug trafficking, but also arms trafficking, kidnappings and arbitrary detentions.
The number of defendants in this “mega trial” is commensurate with the operations that were carried out by French, Belgian and Dutch investigators, in search of the organizers of the traffic in cocaine transported en masse from Latin America, by container or by plane. private, to Antwerp and Rotterdam. In total, 160 tonnes were intercepted in 2022 in Belgium and the Netherlands. The retail price of one gram currently fluctuates between 60 and 70 euros in Europe.
Friday morning, the criminal court met exceptionally in the huge solemn room of the Brussels Court of Appeal, in order to be able to welcome all the parties. The number of defendants, the security measures to be ensured and the probable duration of the hearings (until spring 2024) will lead, in the fall, to a relocation of the trial to the former NATO buildings, on the outskirts of the city. .
The profiles are very diverse within the criminal network brought to light: a few strongmen, Albanians and Colombians, executors of all ages who helped in the reception of cocaine and its distribution throughout Europe – including France -, a ten women, men in suits and ties, young people in sports tracksuits.
Seizure of properties, cars and planes
The decryption of hundreds of millions of messages, in principle anonymous, by the investigators, made it possible to identify the head of the global network, but also the intermediaries, including employees of the port of Antwerp and shipping companies, owners sheds, customs officers, a few lawyers, one or another policeman, and even, it is said, a member of the prosecution.
Some 6,500 people in total are believed to be involved in the EncroChat case, more than 3,000 in the Sky ECC affair. Drugs, hundreds of millions of euros, properties, planes, cars were seized and more than a thousand procedures were launched.
In Belgium, 114 homes had been searched and six laboratories discovered, as well as a stock of weapons. The blow to a sprawling organization was ” terrible “, said, a few weeks ago, the Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne, now placed under reinforced protection. He escaped, in September 2022, an attempted kidnapping attributed to “the drug mafia”. No doubt the Dutch “Moccro Maffia”, whose main leaders are currently on trial in Amsterdam.
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