The proof: taking drugs in the port turns out to be child’s play

There are major concerns about drug extractors – people who remove drugs from containers on behalf of criminals – in the North Sea Canal area. Regularly intercepted the police found containers containing coke and other drugs.

“Smuggling undermines all other activities in this port area,” says Nick Schuiling, who works at the Amsterdam police and is part of the Field Lab. With the latter initiative, police, customs and other authorities and companies have come together to map and solve the drug problem.

“The biggest problem is that there apparently are leaks in this area, through which drugs are smuggled.” According to him, the location and vulnerabilities of the area are attractive to criminals.

Unorthodox

To draw attention to the problem of drug smuggling, people from the Field Label themselves put themselves in the shoes of the drug smugglers. “We crawled under the fences, walked towards containers and escaped the security of the port area. It turned out to be child’s play.” In the video above, drone footage – in the hands of Bureau NH – shows how the staged drug smuggling took place.

Through this unorthodox test, the security services discovered how easy it is to extract drugs. The entrepreneurs were also shocked by the results. “They were really in shock.”

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And now? How do you make it difficult for these types of sneaks to make their move? “By really investing in better physical security. Being able to climb under a fence and take a boat to the quay of a port company: that should not be possible. Significant improvements for all of us, the entrepreneurs and security guards,” says Schuiling.

Alarm signals

Typical red flags? “Barriers that remain open, vehicles that stand at gates for a suspiciously long time, gates that are cut open and so-called employees who do not belong on the site.” In the video below, Schuiling explains what you can do about this and how to report it.