In 2023, the federal police will devote a quarter of its investigative capacity to the war on drugs. A total of 213,670,000 euros in criminal money was seized. This is evident from the annual report of the federal police.
The war on drugs and especially the cracking of Sky ECC – the underworld’s messaging system – in 2021 have led to a small revolution in the deployment of federal police resources in 2023. It has been said and written many times, but it is now also evident from the 2023 annual report that Eric Snoeck, the interim director general of the federal police, presented on Thursday.
These figures show that the federal police launched 4,087 new investigations into organized crime last year. The vast majority of these consisted of investigations into drug gangs. No less than 24.6 percent of the federal police’s investigative capacity will be deployed on drug crime in 2023. The rest of the capacity went to investigating violent crimes, such as murder and robberies, but also human smuggling and trafficking, terrorism and economic and financial crime. Also notable: police discovered 135 hidden spaces in vehicles last year, containing a total of 2.3 tons of cocaine. Parliament passed a law last month that makes such hidden spaces illegal.
Urgently wanted: IT professionals
The annual report was presented in the presence of Minister of the Interior Annelies Verlinden (CD&V) and Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt (Open VLD). “In 2023, the courts sentenced 4,707 years in prison after investigations by the federal police,” Van Tigchelt said. “45 percent of that, 2,130 years, involved prison sentences handed down after drug investigations. Many of those files started in 2021 after the cracking of Sky ECC. We are also increasingly hitting criminal organizations where it really hurts. In 2023, 213,670,000 euros of criminal money was seized. Thanks to the work of the federal judicial police, we are increasingly successful in breaking the back of organized crime.”
Minister Verlinden emphasized the efforts that the federal police continues to make to attract the right people. A total of 13,909 people now work for the federal police. But it remains difficult to attract certain specific profiles, such as young people with an IT diploma. There has been a great need for more staff to fight cybercrime for years, but IT professionals can still earn much more in their private lives.
Also noteworthy: for the terrorism trial on the March 22 attacks, which lasted eight months, the federal police mobilized 105 people per hearing day to transfer the accused between prison and courtroom and to guard the courthouse. Today, a major trial involving more than 130 defendants is underway in the same courthouse in Evere. That also takes up a lot of capacity.
