Belgium’s biggest criminal trial with 129 defendants starts
Belgium’s the largest criminal trial starts today. 129 defendants face charges: 124 actual persons, four companies and a person unknown that the court still has to identify. Everything revolves around drugs: the import of cocaine from South America and cannabis from Morocco.
Drug crimes are centre stage. The implication is Belgium operated as an international hub.
On Tuesday, October 26, 2021, at 5 am police raided 114 premises across the country, aiming to unravel a large drug network. It is an offshoot of the SKY ECC investigation, when investigators managed to hack into the system used by encrypted SKY ECC telephones, often employed by criminals, and managed to read the messages criminals were exchanging and learn their plans for two and a half years.
That investigation resulted in hundreds of files involving thousands of suspects.
A "new criminal world is being revealed in Brussels. It’s territory which until now had managed to remain largely inconspicuous" says Eric Jacobs, a key police officer on that October 26th.
The case revolves on the import of cocaine from South America and cannabis from Morocco. The drugs are imported and extracted in Belgium, repackaged in laboratories and then distributed to the rest of Europe.
What investigators found during their investigations was impressive: no fewer than nine drug laboratories are dismantled - in warehouses, but often also in ordinary terraced houses, barrels and vats full of chemicals or drug waste, tables and bowls full of white powder, notebooks with scribbled notes on how to run drug laboratories, weapons, piles of cash, dozens of cars, gold coins, luxury goods, material to fabricate fake documents, jammers, propulsion engines for divers and so on.
The drugs had been liquefied and injected into ordinary objects, such as clothing. In the laboratory, the drugs are then removed using chemicals - a so-called cocaine wash. Then the cocaine is pressed back into blocks. In other laboratories, pure cocaine was adulterated or mixed with other products to maximise profits.
Conditions in the laboratories were not very safe or professional. At one of the sites, for instance, traces of a fire are clearly visible. Drugs were also scattered everywhere, on tables, in bowls, in cupboards. In a notebook, investigators also discovered scribbles, with chemical processes, but all amateurishly drawn.
What will happen next?
This major investigation has now been completed and the trial promises to be a major challenge for the court system.
The case features no fewer than 129 defendants (124 people, four companies and one person unknown). Belgians, but also Albanians, Colombians, Algerians and French nationals. They do not form one big gang, but a tangle of different gangs. One thing seems to tie them together: their encrypted messages - first via Encrochat, then Sky ECC - landed them in the dock.
Dozens of defendants are in jail across the country. That means they will have to be transferred to court every day.
The accused also include a police inspector from the Brussels South police zone. He allegedly provided information from police databases and thus breached his professional secrecy. Separately, there is also an ongoing investigation into a Brussels lawyer, who is also allegedly involved in this case.
The main focus is on drugs, but the gangs are said to have been involved in other crimes too: extortion, kidnapping, arms trafficking, forgery and money laundering.
The first four defendants are being questioned today; they are said to have had the biggest roles. Most of the defendants' lawyers claim that the investigation was not conducted legally. It is estimated the whole trial will take five months
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/12/18/criminal-trial-drugs-belgium-brussels-gangs-sky-ecc/
