The Inside Story of Rotterdam's Fight Against Cocaine
The port of Rotterdam's police commander is worried. New ways of hiding cocaine are defeating scanners, while younger children are now getting involved in the drug trade.
The port cities of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg are united in taking a strong stance against cocaine trafficking. But for Jan Janse, the police chief of Rotterdam port, focusing on drug seizures is meaningless. He tells World of Crime about how his team fights traffickers and corrupt officials, and why the future of the cocaine trade is about to change.
World of Crime: In 2022, Rotterdam was the only major port in Europe to report a significant drop in cocaine seizures. Was this a short-term success that will be difficult to replicate or more of a long-term strategy?
Jan Janse: We changed our working methods around 2018 and 2019, we increased police collaboration with customs in the port, and worked together to push container terminals and shipping lines to take certain measures. The most effective move was the launch of our anti-corruption team in 2022. We were able to cut out some very important people in the port who helped drug organizations. If you do that, it’s not so easy for them to find another key figure in the port.
However, drug traffickers will go where they think they will succeed. If they don’t think they will succeed in Rotterdam, they will go to Antwerp or Hamburg.
WoC: In a recent Europol podcast, you gave the example of a fruit company that worked on a small pier that was publicly accessible. You scared them by telling them were the biggest drug traffickers in the Netherlands. Can you tell us about that?
JJ: This was our first major success prior to 2022, when we saw we had to operate in a different way. In a couple of months, that seemingly normal fruit company went from having maybe a drug bust every couple of years to having the second-largest amount of drug busts in the whole port. And the largest amount was in a major container terminal.
We found that the company had at least six criminal networks working through it. By closing down that avenue, we could close down how six criminal networks were getting their drugs in. So now they all have to find another way to bring cocaine in, whether through Rotterdam, or a new avenue in Antwerp, Hamburg, or Liverpool.
WoC: You describe the collaboration between customs, police, the terminals and private companies in a positive light. Would you say there’s still room for improvement?
JJ: There’s always room for improvement. But when I came here in 2014, the first thing I noticed is that cooperation here is natural. I don’t have to ask my people to go and cooperate with others. When one of our police ships sails out, there are always people on board from other agencies.
As the port police, we don’t have the authority to investigate everything or check things everywhere. We need customs, or food and health services, or the harbourmaster. And they all need the police. For the last 28 years, we have had a cooperation team. Every time drugs are found, someone from customs, from investigative services, from the port police, from the public prosecutor’s office gets involved.
WoC: What are the limits on your authority to investigate drug seizures? When do you delegate to higher authorities?
JJ: There’s no limit for judicial matters. We are a district police so most of us go around in uniform. We do the basic policing in port, but we also have a detective squad of about 80 people. We will be expanding that to almost 100 in a couple of years. We also work with customs to extend our possibilities to investigate large criminal networks.
So we investigate where the drugs came from, where they were going to, and arrest the first and second circle of participants. We investigate corruption in port and we investigate major cargo theft. As soon as criminal networks are involved, we cooperate with national investigative services and regional crime squads.
WoC: The mayors of Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg have seemed to form a coalition. They went to Latin America in January and are taking a tough approach to drug trafficking. Btut the mayor of Amsterdam held a major conference in January, advocating for the decriminalization of drugs. Do these policy differences affect your work?
JJ: Mayors don’t create drug policy. That’s the job of the Justice Minister. But I am very happy with the work of [Rotterdam] mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb. In 2017 and 2018, when we saw the rapid rise in drugs coming into the port, we told him we needed help. He helped us enormously and got us nine million euros extra every year to expand our drug investigation capabilities.
He is pretty clear on what he wants, that the national government should address this problem. But there is also a program created in the city and with the partners in port to help people who are involved in drugs, how to prevent people from becoming involved in drug smuggling, especially minors.
In Amsterdam, Mayor Femke Halsema wants to address this in a different way. She sees criminals getting into serious positions to affect our state affairs, and she thinks that regulating drugs might be one of the solutions.
I am in between. We have to fight drugs, but not like in Latin America. You need to investigate, and find out as much information as you can. It’s not about choosing either to fully regulate or to fully fight. This is a hydra with many heads.
WoC: Is there a vicious circle where authorities focus on numbers, such as the quantity of seizures or number of arrests? Do these really make a difference?
JJ: I am interested to see the effect of other interventions, alongside investigations. Do they help? I know that we saw a decrease from over 70 tons to 46 tons [of cocaine seized at the port of Rotterdam] in 2022, but next year, that could go back up to 80 or 100 tons.
People think that if you can investigate all crimes, you can stop crime. But nowadays, there are more criminals, more crime than we can ever investigate. It’s impossible to reach a level where we solve even 20 or 30% of all cases.
So people say we need to invest more in police investigations, but that will not stop the drug flow. If you want to stop drug trafficking and drug use, you need to find other means than police investigations. If you watch ten-minute reports on the news, everybody seems to think there’s a simple solution for this international drug problem. That’s not true.
But I’m not pessimistic. There’s room for other types of interventions, such as perhaps looking to help people who are unwillingly helping transport drugs from South America to here. If we look at these effects of drug smuggling, we probably won’t stop it but we could push it back somewhat.
WoC: What do you think of the new European Ports Alliance? And how are the experiences of the port of Antwerp informing other countries?
JJ: There’s a lot of interest in what we do. We had a recent EU evaluation which noted down the best practices of several ports, and in a few months, all member states will be asked to implement these practices. We have a lot of contact with South American authorities, who want to know how we cooperate with terminals and shipping companies.
One interesting area is about privacy legislation. Many foreign countries have privacy laws that make it difficult for them to talk or share information with private companies. For instance, if we find a truck drive who is involved in getting drugs from a terminal, we report here to the company that issues passes for truck drivers to enter container terminals. We tell them we arrested someone for being involved in drug smuggling, they revoke his pass and he can’t work in the port of Rotterdam anymore.
The port of Antwerp has the same system and a private company that issues the passes. They are very willing to withdraw the passes, but they’re not allowed to get the information from the police. In Germany, it’s even more difficult to work around privacy legislation.
WoC: Let’s discuss the difficult situation in Ecuador where homicides have risen to a record high, especially around the port of Guayaquil. There’s been plentiful evidence of port officials, police, customs all being involved in the drug trade. How can you possibly work together, even though much of the cocaine entering Europe is coming from Guayaquil?
JJ: Concerning Ecuador, for the time being, that’s impossible. There is a government, but everything they’re trying to do in the port there might be useless. The first thing that has to happen is the international community have to help Ecuador to take charge again.
However, there are still some large seizures happening in Ecuador, remember. In January, they made a record seizure of 22 tons of cocaine over there. That’s still going to have an impact on drug trafficking.
WoC: Even with the chaos in Ecuador, you are beginning to see a slight shift to other regional ports. More drugs are coming out of Peru and Costa Rica. Chile is getting increasingly worried about drug trafficking. How closely do you look at what the next ports of origin for the cocaine trade might be?
JJ: We’re worried about Peru, because we see more gang violence happening at Peru’s borders. We know that has a lot to do with drug smuggling. We know there’s a big route through Brazil and south and western Africa, which is growing. The port of Antwerp has seized larger drug amounts coming from western Africa last year, but the port of Rotterdam hasn’t seen that.
Many of the criminal networks are also moving. For example, a lot of the top networks are not based in the Netherlands anymore. They were in Dubai and now many of them are in Turkey. That’s another indicator that routes are changing.
WoC: After the dismantling of the EncroChat network used by criminals, information came out about Mexican or Colombian drug cooks being found in the Netherlands and Belgium, teaching locals how to make cocaine or synthetic drugs. Have you seen that?
JJ: Three or four years ago, we saw a few Mexicans or Colombians, but they were mostly what we call “the eyes.” They came to see if the drugs had arrived in the right amount and if they had been properly received. If they confirmed this to both parties, then the payment would happen. But I don’t think we have arrested any Mexicans or Colombians in the past three years.
What we know is they don’t need these “eyes” anymore. Those receiving the drugs have to photograph and film the opened container. They have to film the seal on the container, they have to film the bags in which the drugs are, they have to film how many drugs are being taken out.
WoC: So what profile of person do you see now involved in the drug trade in the port?
JJ: There have been changes in the teams that enter the port. It used to be young guys in their 20s and experienced criminals, who knew how to operate on these terminals. They knew each other and were a team.
Now, those collecting the drugs meet ten minutes before they get in the truck. You see people from all over the Netherlands, or Belgium, or France. We have also seen very young teenagers, kids from 11 to 15, getting involved especially since November 2023. We also saw the first woman getting involved, we arrested the first woman, 18 years old, after around 1,100 arrests in the last couple of years.
They’re recruited through apps. There’s groups on Snapchat, for example, where these young boys offer themselves because they want to be involved. And they don’t need to know anything because they’re being led by one or two older guys who do know how to operate. They just have to carry stuff.
Only those older people will have phones. The kids have to give up their phones before they enter the container to be smuggled inside the terminal. It’s almost like child soldiers in a way. They have no idea what they’re getting into, they just want to be part of this way of living they see online through successful influencers.
And these kids are not just smuggling drugs. If they are asked to go place a bomb on a door, that’s ok, if they are asked to go shoot at a house, that’s ok. They just want to take part in this criminal world.
WoC: What do you make of reports that more and more cocaine is being processed in Europe as more labs have been found, including in the Netherlands?
JJ: That’s not what it is. It’s not that they are making cocaine powder here. It’s about a new way of smuggling. They’re washing cocaine into textiles or cardboard or other types of goods. They then have to remove the cocaine from the goods so they need labs for that.
Smuggling cocaine onto containers requires a bonafide logistical process in South America. You need to open the container, put your bags in, clone the seal that is on the container, which they call the “rip-on/rip-off method.” I predict that way of smuggling is going to finish in a couple of years.
Washing cocaine into clothing or cardboard causes a lot of difficulties. It’s more complicated for drug traffickers than the rip-on/rip-off method but there’s very little chance of detection. Container scanners can’t pick it up.
But the only thing is you need a lab over here to wash it out. If you do it in the wrong way, you lose a lot of cocaine. So you have to do it in the right way with people that have the right knowledge. When we take apart these labs, our specialists tell us that the Dutch traffickers have become pretty good at this. They don’t need Colombians or Mexicans to teach them.
The number and size of these laboratories are only growing. We found one cocaine lab in late 2023 that could handle 1,000 kilograms of cocaine a day.
WoC: So how are detection and scanning methods in port evolving to cope with this new technique?
JJ: Right now, if cocaine is being smuggled in a container, we look at the seal. If it’s false, we search the container and bring in sniffer dogs. But that doesn’t work if the cocaine is washed into textiles.
So to fight this, we need information intelligence. Right now, we are working on better techniques to scan these goods in port more quickly. But it’s still a slow process. If we suspect cocaine has been washed into cardboard, we have to send the cardboard to a lab somewhere in the Netherlands. After two or three weeks, we heard if cocaine was found inside or not. We are trying to develop a mobile lab that can do this testing inside the port.
We are working on increasing our intelligence operations around the logistics of the process. If you wash your drugs into cardboard or clothing, you can’t take the drugs out in port. You have to get this container to an address, which means you have to register the address and you have to have a company. This type of information gives you more insights into who is involved.
WoC: So do you think this new technique will change the routes being involved? For example, Guayaquil to Antwerp is probably the busiest route for the cocaine trade, because Guayaquil exports a lot of bananas and Antwerp has a colossal fruit terminal.
JJ: That probably won’t change. They wash the cocaine into the cardboard boxes used to pack the bananas.