Dozens sentenced to prison in Belgium’s biggest ever drug smuggling trial: “Your honor, I played, I lost.”

Lawyers arrives for a hearing before the court’s verdict in the country’s biggest ever drug trafficking trial at Brussels correctional court, at Justitia, in Brussels, on October 29, 2024. 

ERIC LALMAND/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

By breaking into the messaging tools, police said they were able to peer into the unguarded planning and carrying out of drug smuggling operations.

The sentences were handed out about three months after police on Friday announced the takedown of a major network transporting Latin American cocaine into Europe by boat in an international operation involving 50 arrests across eight countries. Around that same time,

authorities in Paraguay announced the largest cocaine seizure in the country’s history, after officials were surprised to find more than 4 tons of the drug stashed inside a shipment of sugar bound for Belgium. 

Blow to drug smugglers or “publicity stunt”?

Belgian authorities have portrayed the trial as the latest blow delivered to drug smuggling gangs.

But some defense lawyers decried it as a “publicity stunt” accusing prosecutors of having bundled together disconnected cases into one eye-catching trial.

“People were artificially linked to each other when they had no connection,” Guerni’s lawyer Gilles Vanderbeck told AFP before the verdicts were pronounced.

Prosecutors insist there was a “structure and hierarchy” between the various criminal groups involved and clear illegal commercial links.

Some suspects were acquitted, while dozens of others received prison terms ranging from a few months to more than 10 years.

The judgment was initially expected on September 2 but was postponed after an objection by one of the defendants.

A policeman stands guard before the court’s verdict in the country’s biggest ever drug trafficking trial at Brussels correctional court, at Justitia, in Brussels, on October 29, 2024. 

ERIC LALMAND/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

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Publish date : 2024-10-29 11:27:00

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