Brussels affected by crime linked to drug trafficking

Since the beginning of February, several shootings have broken out in Brussels, most of them linked to drug trafficking.

In Belgium, serious crime is no longer confined to the Antwerp region, but is taking a lasting hold in certain neighborhoods of Brussels: in around ten days, there were seven exchanges of gunfire, leaving one dead and several injured. The last attack dates from February 19 in Forest, a rather residential district. It is around 9 p.m., a car stops near a pedestrian, its hooded occupants try to force him into their car but he resists. Shots are fired. The man, injured in the leg, was left on the sidewalk; his attackers managed to escape.

Five days earlier, an exchange of fire in an area known for drug trafficking left one person dead. The day before, in the middle of the afternoon, shots had been fired into the air at the same location from an automatic weapon. Belgian media also broadcast the video of an armed man riding a scooter at night on a major boulevard in the city. At one point he draws a pistol and fires in the direction of a group of men.

Territorial war against a backdrop of drug trafficking

The prosecution communicates little, but it is the preferred route. The mayors of three of the most affected municipalities, Saint-Gilles, Ixelles and Anderlecht (the equivalent of our district mayors), are very alarmist. Mafia organizations are taking power over the drug market, they believe, with ultra-violent methods: intimidation, kidnapping, execution… These shootings are part of a territorial struggle for drug trafficking, and it These are not small neighborhood deals, says the mayor of Saint-Gilles, Jean Spinette. The police are making multiple arrests and seizures. The amounts are indeed very significant.

In the newspaper The evening, the three elected officials call for a general mobilization of the authorities. In 2016, Belgium was surprised by terrorist attacks on its soil and then set up a specific coordination body to deal with them. The three elected officials are asking for an equivalent to fight what they describe as a “new cancer” for their neighborhoods.