At 21, Zakaria El Kasmioui was already the boss of a young criminal gang that generated an estimated £25 million by importing tonnes of cocaine through the port of Antwerp – the drugs gateway of Europe.
At 29, the kingpin appears on Belgium’s ‘Most Wanted’ list and has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, but he is believed to have evaded capture by relocating to a luxury skyscraper in Dubai where he continues to expand his collection of Rolex watches and Louboutin trainers.
Kasmioui, who goes by the deceptive nickname ‘Piwi’ (meaning ‘idiot’), is but one part of Belgium’s spiralling cocaine problem, where drug lords preside over mafia-like gangs and rival the police and judiciary for control of the country.
The situation is so alarming that a senior investigative judge broke her silence, warning that her nation was rapidly evolving into a ‘narco-state’ because of the ‘billion-dollar’ black market industry.
‘We are facing an organised threat that is undermining our institutions,’ wrote the terrified judge in her 1,000-word anonymous open letter, pleading for ‘a government that takes responsibility for protecting its own foundations’.
The whistleblower paints a grim picture of state corruption, revealing how drug cartels have infiltrated every fibre of Belgium society – from customs personnel to police forces and employees of the justice system in prisons and courts.
Not only that, but senior officials have been forced to live under permanent police protection because of threats from gangsters, who are using Snapchat to order home bomb attacks and kidnappings for a few hundred euros apiece.
Without immediate action, more innocent civilians – who have nothing to do with the criminal underworld – risk getting wrapped up in the violence, with Brussels alone recording 92 shootings last year, killing nine and injuring 48.
In 2023, cocaine seizures in Europe hit a record for the seventh consecutive year, with 419 metric tonnes confiscated by authorities.
Belgium led the way with 123 tonnes – 116 tonnes in Antwerp alone – followed by Spain (118 tonnes) and the Netherlands (59 tonnes), as the three countries with major ports accounted for 72 percent of the total amount grabbed by agents.
However, seizures likely represent only 10-20 percent of the total amount of the drug in circulation, and gangs fully anticipate that a proportion of their deliveries will be discovered.
Still, the profits are huge, with demand for the substance showing no signs of faltering – its street price has held steady at around €50 per gram for the past decade.
And as rival gangs compete to cash in on the £11 billion trade, their bloody turf wars are spilling out on to the streets.
On Thursday, the dismembered body of Tijn, a 25-year-old man who had gone missing from Alkmaar in September, was discovered at a holiday home in Belgium.
Reports in local media suggest his death was linked to a drugs dispute – the latest incident in a string of gruesome cases which have been plaguing the western European country for years.
In 2022, 46-year-old Yacine El M’Rabet was tortured to death in Brussels for reportedly stealing cocaine from his bosses Michaël Pindeville and Ahmed El Battouti.
He was discovered on the side of the street after reportedly having been burned on his genitals with an iron and with a homemade blowtorch, doused with ammonia, and beaten with a gas canister and a metal bar, which was also used to rape him.
That same year, Dutch media reported that a 17-year-old had his earlobe cut off, tendons in his hand severed, and a piece of one of his toes removed after he was suspected of having tipped off another gang about the location of 300kg of cocaine in East Flanders.
In a particularly hideous case, an 11-year-old girl was shot dead in Antwerp in 2023 after being caught up in the crossfire of warring drug traffickers.
The child, who was from the Merksem district, was having dinner with her family when the house they live in was shot at.
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