BRUSSELS, Belgium: Belgium´s national drugs commissioner has issued an urgent plea for her country to “act now” to crack down on the revenues of traffickers or risk seeing crime syndicates corrode society.

Perched on the northern coast of the European mainland and housing a major port, Belgium has become a key hub for criminal gangs supplying narcotics across the continent.

“The accomplices of criminal organisations live among us, the distinction between the legal world of good, and the illegal world of bad, is not holding any more,” Ine Van Wymersch told AFP. Van Wymersch, who has been in the coordinating role since 2023, insisted that authorities at all levels and every sector needed to help “chase illegal money” being laundered.