‘It’s like a cat and mouse game’: on the frontline of Belgium’s fight against drug smugglers

Antwerp port is stepping up scanning of goods amid warnings country risks becoming a narco-state Sara Van Cotthem takes a safety knife and precisely slices open the side of a cardboard box to unpack its contents, an aluminium stepladder made in China. Working under harsh fluorescent lights at the border inspection post at the port of Antwerp, Van Cotthem checks the paperwork and taps the ladder with a magnet to check if it really is aluminium and not another metal. It is an everyday operation fo