Belgian police seized almost 4,000 kg of cocaine on Tuesday after being led to an address entered into navigation app Waze by two Dutch men. The men, aged 27 and 46 and with a history of drug-related crime, were arrested and remain in custody.
Police had been informed of suspicious behavior late Tuesday evening in Ravels, a small town in the north of Belgium close to the Dutch border. Cars with Dutch license plates had been seen driving up and down a road.
The navigation app led police to a nearby hangar with a container filled with 68 bags of cocaine, estimated by the prosecutor’s office to weigh 4,000 kg. Seven other men were also arrested at the hangar.
The Belgium port of Antwerp, 55 km west of Ravels, is known as Europe’s main entrance for cocaine. Last year, a record 110 tons of cocaine were intercepted there, accounting for 40 percent of all seizures in Europe, although local custom authorities estimate that is only 10 to 15 percent of the total cocaine smuggled into the port.
The European Union and Belgium recently announced that they will be stepping up their fight against organized drug crime.