Belgian customs at Brussels Zaventem Airport seized a batch of Easter bunnies made from a block of MDMA intended to be converted into pills of ecstasy.
The fake chocolate bunnies had been packed and posted in Belgium in a package bound for Hong Kong.
Considered as a gateway to Europe for cocaine manufactured in Latin America, Belgium has also become a hub for synthetic drugs manufactured in Europe and shipped around the world by post.
Pol Meuleneire, a 61-year-old customs veteran who is due to retire in a few months, tells AFP have times have changed compared to his early career, when finding just 10 grams of cannabis in an envelope was a big score.
Today, his office in the cargo area of Brussels Airport is overflowing with suspicious packages, bags and jars full of illegal pills and powders.
“In 2022, we seized nearly six tonnes of drugs at the airport,” says Florence Angelici, spokesperson for Belgian customs.
“It circulates all over the world. Today, people can order online on the dark web and have it delivered to their home in a few clicks,” she says.
Meuleneire presses his handheld scanner - a Raman spectroscope, which can identify substances by their chemical fingerprint - against the base of a chocolate-coloured rabbit.
The screen flashes green: “Caution, MDMA (ecstasy)”.
While AFP journalists visited Meuleneire, the officer discovered several other illicit products in packages received last week: A “Peppa Pig” branded lunch box destined for New Zealand seemed normal at first glance, but the packaging was too heavy to be nothing but cardboard and plastic. It was filled with ketamine, an anaesthetic used as a recreational drug.
A little chemist’s box - a children’s game - contained a bag of crystal meth.
Cocaine is found hidden in plastic packages between two layers of cardboard packaging, which weighs down the package and makes it suspicious for an experienced customs officer.
Antwerp in Belgium is the main port of entry into Europe for cocaine from Latin America. Some of it is re-exported by post to countries like Australia, where it sells for higher prices.
Venezuelan gangs that export narcotics to Europe in turn import synthetic drugs, such as crystal methamphetamine, from Belgium. They are manufactured in laboratories in the Netherlands and Belgium, Belgian customs explain.
Ketamine, MDMA and methamphetamine are concealed in everyday objects or in jars labeled as vitamin supplements and then shipped from ordinary post offices located in Belgium, France or Germany.
“Smugglers use mules to transport packages and post them around the world,” explains Angelici. At Brussels Airport, a computerised platform selects packages based on known suspicious characteristics and customs officers get to work scanning and, in some cases, opening them.
Among the most surprising discoveries, Meuleneire shows journalists portraits of Christ whose frames were stuffed with drugs, teddy bears full of pills and copper pipes filled with veterinary tranquilisers.
