De Wever and Rotterdam counterpart Aboutaleb want to step up the fight against drug smuggling: “Control of all fruit transports from risk countries” | Abroad

Belgium and the Netherlands must put much more effort into combating cocaine smuggling from Colombia and other South American countries. For example, the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp must be secured even more strictly and all fruit transports from risk countries should be checked. That is what Rotterdam mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb and his Antwerp counterpart Bart De Wever state in a joint letter to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Begian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo. The two mayors traveled through Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica last week and, based on their findings, say that the Netherlands and Belgium must do much more to stop the supply of cocaine to the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp. “We cannot leave this problem with these countries alone,” they write in their letter.