The ‘Finger cutter’ and the ‘Brazilian Escobar’: the men accused of bringing cocaine cartels to Europe
A Belgian criminal organisation’s links with a Brazilian cocaine gang have been the focus of a major trial in Brussels, where smuggling links have been alleged between European players and the drug cartels of Latin America In the early hours of 7 September, a convoy of heavily armed police swept through the sleeping streets of central Brussels towards the Haren district, on the city’s north-eastern outskirts.
They made their way to 22 Avenue du Bourget, a militarised bunker-like complex that was the former headquarters of Nato.
The modernist complex, with its austere and functional architecture, was hastily built in 1967 and houses the Justitia courtroom, where Belgium’s federal trials are now held.
It was here that the perpetrators and accomplices of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks and the 2016 Brussels attacks were tried in 2022.
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