Antwerp used to be best known for its diamonds. Today, it is rapidly gaining notoriety for something far more dangerous: cocaine.
At the heart of this dark trade lies a disturbing new trend—the systematic exploitation of teenagers, some as young as 13, by organised crime groups who offer them designer trainers, iPhones, and bikes in exchange for smuggling drugs from shipping containers.
The scale of the problem is staggering. In just the first half of this year, authorities arrested 168 individuals for cocaine-related offences in the port of Antwerp. Of those, 166 were teenagers, and 37 were children under the age of 18. The numbers are not just alarming—they are a glaring indictment of a European city struggling to control its underworld.
Antwerp’s port, the second-largest in Europe after Rotterdam, has become the continent’s principal entry point for cocaine, most of it shipped from Latin America in ever more sophisticated consignments. In the past, drug cartels relied on bribing dock workers or planting inside men to extract the cargo. But as security has tightened and scrutiny increased, they’ve shifted tactics—recruiting children from the city’s poorest districts to do the dirty work.
“They’re known as ‘extractors’,” says a police investigator familiar with the case. “The job is simple: climb into the containers, find the hidden packages, and get them out before the authorities catch you. It’s dangerous, dirty work—but for these boys, the reward seems worth it.”
The cartels’ strategy is chillingly effective. They lure teenagers with what to them seems like unimaginable wealth: €300 in cash, a new pair of Nike trainers, or the latest smartphone. To a schoolboy from the marginalised outskirts of Antwerp, often living in social housing, that’s not a bribe—it’s a lifeline. Once hooked, the boys are pressured into repeat runs, threatened with violence if they disobey or talk. Some are even armed. Others are forced to work overnight inside the docks without food, water, or any means of escape if something goes wrong.
For the gangs, the use of minors is a calculated risk. “If a 14-year-old gets caught,” explains a Belgian prosecutor, “he might spend a few weeks in a youth detention centre. That’s it. No serious sentence, no real consequence. And so, the older criminals stay in the shadows.”
The rise in youth involvement is not an isolated problem—it’s part of a broader pattern of cartel infiltration across Europe. Belgian police estimate that more than 100 tonnes of cocaine passed through Antwerp last year alone. Much of it was bound for markets in France, Germany, and the UK. While the street violence grabs headlines, the real story is the vast, invisible web of corruption, coercion and commerce that underpins it.
Nor is Antwerp alone. Rotterdam, Le Havre, and even ports as far afield as Gdańsk have reported similar tactics. But it is in Antwerp that the nexus of supply and vulnerability has created the perfect storm. The city’s Moroccan, Turkish and Congolese communities—many of whom have long been marginalised—are now fertile recruitment grounds for crime networks operating with increasing boldness and impunity.
The Belgian authorities have responded with a mix of law enforcement and social outreach, but critics say it’s too little, too late. A special anti-drug task force was deployed in January, and security at the port has been upgraded with scanners, patrols, and facial recognition systems. But even the police admit they are playing catch-up.
“These kids are being used like pawns,” says Liesbet Stevens, a criminologist at KU Leuven. “The problem isn’t just crime—it’s poverty, exclusion, a sense that the state has abandoned them. You can’t fight that with arrests alone.”
There have been some successes. In April, a major drug ring operating across Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain was dismantled, with over 60 arrests and the seizure of 3.2 tonnes of cocaine. But these victories feel pyrrhic when teenagers are still being pulled from containers, freezing, half-starved, and terrified.
Meanwhile, the city’s schools and youth centres are facing their own crisis. Teachers report students missing classes for days, or turning up with unexplained cash and bruises. One social worker described a 15-year-old who boasted of earning “more in one night than my dad in a month.” That same boy was later found unconscious in the back of a van, dumped by gangsters who feared he’d talked too much.
The moral decay runs deeper than just the port. Antwerp’s cocaine crisis is now spilling into street violence, extortion rackets, and turf wars. In May, a grenade was thrown at a suburban house linked to a drug trafficker. In June, a shooting in Borgerhout left two teenagers dead. Police believe both incidents were retaliation over stolen drug shipments.
For many, this is no longer just about drugs—it’s about the soul of a European city. Antwerp, once proud of its medieval guild houses and 17th-century art, is now the battleground for a 21st-century narco war. And at the frontlines are children with no business being there.
What makes this situation so tragic is not just the cruelty of the cartels, but the failure of Europe’s political class to grasp the urgency. EU security agencies have sounded the alarm. Europol’s recent Serious Organised Crime Threat Assessment names cocaine trafficking as Europe’s fastest-growing criminal threat. And yet, in Brussels, debate remains locked in abstraction: strategy papers, frameworks, and initiatives, but little in the way of firm action.
In Antwerp, the war is already here. And if Europe doesn’t respond, the rest of the continent may soon face its own reckoning.
Main Image: By LBM1948 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82827953
Ecstasy: Record Levels of MDMA Detected in Antwerp Sewage, European Study Reveals
