Belgien. A Murdered Journalist's Last Investigation · Going Bananas: Flanders Transformed into Hub for International Cocaine Trafficking
Belgien. A Murdered Journalist's Last Investigation · Going Bananas: Flanders Transformed into Hub for International Cocaine Trafficking
When he was murdered by an unknown assassin earlier this year, Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak was part of an international team looking into foreign drug smugglers suspected of laundering money in his country.
Kuciak and his fiancée were shot and killed on Feb. 21. He was collaborating with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Investigative Reporting Project Italy, and the Czech Center for Investigative Journalism, which have all contributed to the present investigation.
In the wake of his death, the team has continued reporting, uncovering more about the criminal group and how it operated.
The investigation reveals an international ring of drug traffickers with ties to the Italian mafia. Based in Belgium, with operations in the Netherlands, it could count on suppliers from Costa Rica and Colombia and secret large caches of cocaine in fruit shipments from Latin America to Western Europe.
A major Belgian law enforcement operation named Raak (the Dutch word for “strike”) took down part of the network — only to see its mastermind murdered before he could be brought to justice.
Its remaining parts, spread across the world, have continued to function despite the Belgian police action. And even in Belgium, cocaine traffickers were quick to resume their work. (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), 20.07.2018)