Distribution/Logistics: Flanders, The Hub For International Cocaine Trafficking

HT upwards front: the Investigative Reporting Project, Italy, July 23:

The piece of cake Belgian-Italian mobster Silvio Aquino had a new agency to smuggle drugs into Europe: hiding cocaine inward shipments of tropical fruit. One of the reporting leads Ján Kuciak was investigating when he was murdered this Feb concerned Aquino’s efforts to wash his profits inward Slovakia.

When he was murdered past times an unknown assassinator before this year, Slovak journalist January Kuciak was component of an international squad looking into unusual drug smugglers suspected of laundering coin inward his country.

The investigation reveals an international band of drug traffickers alongside ties to the Italian mafia. Based inward Belgium, alongside operations inward the Netherlands, it could count on suppliers from Republic of Costa Rica as well as Republic of Colombia as well as hole-and-corner large caches of cocaine inward fruit shipments from Latin America to Western Europe.

From the Organized Crime as well as Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP):

Going Bananas: Flemish region Transformed into Hub for International Cocaine Trafficking

When he was murdered past times an unknown assassinator before this year, Slovak journalist January Kuciak was component of an international squad looking into unusual drug smugglers suspected of laundering coin inward his country.
In the wake of his death, the squad has continued reporting, discovery to a greater extent than nearly the criminal grouping as well as how it operated.

Kuciak as well as his fiancée were shot as well as killed on Feb. 21. He was collaborating alongside the Organized Crime as well as Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Investigative Reporting Project Italy, as well as the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism, which convey all contributed to the introduce investigation.

The investigation reveals an international band of drug traffickers alongside ties to the Italian mafia. Based inward Belgium, alongside operations inward the Netherlands, it could count on suppliers from Republic of Costa Rica as well as Republic of Colombia as well as hole-and-corner large caches of cocaine inward fruit shipments from Latin America to Western Europe.

Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 major Belgian law enforcement performance named Raak (the Dutch discussion for “strike”) took downward component of the network — alone to encounter its mastermind murdered before he could live brought to justice.

Its remaining parts, spread across the world, convey continued to business office despite the Belgian law action. And fifty-fifty inward Belgium, cocaine traffickers were quick to resume their work.

Belgium’s Top Narcos
Before his abrupt murder, Silvio Aquino was a principal suspect inward what has been called “one of the biggest drug trials inward Belgian history.”

The Raak investigation into cocaine smuggling — which involved 34 defendants as well as the seizure of over €8 ane G one thousand (US$ nine million) inward cash, drugs, cars, as well as weapons — dragged on for over iv years before finally wrapping upwards on Feb. 1, 2017.

Large portions of the cocaine were imported past times the Aquino work solid unit of measurement through the port of Rotterdam; helping explicate why the Netherlands has expire known inward recent years equally a European gateway for South American cocaine.

But who was Silvio Aquino, the family’s ascension leader at the fourth dimension of his death?

Born as well as raised past times his Italian manful someone parent inward Maasmechelen, a quaint metropolis of nearly 38,000 inward Belgium’s Flemish region region, Aquino grew into a fundamental figure inward the global drug merchandise at a immature historic menstruation (his lastly known labor before going totally into drug trafficking was managing a pizzeria).

By the fourth dimension of the most recent investigation, he had already faced multiple convictions: Once for international drug trafficking inward Kingdom of Belgium inward 1998; in ane lawsuit to a greater extent than inward the Netherlands inward 2004 for kidnapping a human being who had sold him saccharide instead of cocaine; as well as in ane lawsuit once to a greater extent than inward Kingdom of Belgium inward 2014, this fourth dimension for criminal organization as well as exporting 6.5 tons of ecstasy pills to Australia.

Bald, clean-shaved, as well as muscular, Silvio Aquino looked equally difficult equally his work.

He was also a difficult worker. Evidence presented inward courtroom painted a pic of a human being dedicated to enriching his family, which he worshiped similar a proper mafia don. “I’m from the street. I kidnapped people; I’ve done it all my life,” he was overheard telling associates. “I don’t desire problems. I desire expert business. I desire to brand coin for the family.”...

...MUCH MORE