The European Union can make a difference in the crackdown on drug trafficking by using its regulatory power to force encrypted communication companies to cooperate with law enforcement, Belgium’s National Drug Commissioner, Ine Van Wymersch, has told Euronews’ interview programme 12 Minutes With.
“Where we need more pressure from the European institutions is to put these big companies that are bringing their encrypted communication tools to our market under pressure: to force them to collaborate with law enforcement,” Van Wymersch said.
“They are facilitating not only legal communication, but also illegal communication,” she explained. “We see that criminal organisations are really taking advantage of the fact that these companies are not very keen on collaborating with law enforcement.”
Drug trafficking gangs use both legal and criminal encrypted communication services to coordinate their operations.
Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, has recently dismantled sprawling criminal networks operating across the European continent using the intelligence they extracted from known criminal messaging platforms such as Sky ECC, Encrochat and ANOM.
The agency describes these platforms as “powerful tools” for investigators, as both the leadership and logistical arms of criminal gangs rely on them.
Belgian authorities have also, in the past, cracked billions of messages on Sky ECC and Encrochat, leading to more than 100 convictions and major breakthroughs in the fight against drugs.
But Van Wymersch also mentioned commercial apps such as Telegram and Signal as potential avenues for further crackdowns.
Neither Telegram nor Signal are currently considered ‘Very Large Online Platforms’ under the EU’s digital rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA), as they claim to have fewer than 45 million monthly users across the bloc.
This means they do not have to comply with the strictest set of rules relating to illegal content.
Telegram — whose CEO, Pavel Durov, was detained in France last year amid a probe involving drug offences on the app — has chosen Belgium as its legal seat in the EU, meaning the platform’s compliance with the DSA is being policed by the Belgian telecoms regulator, BIPT.
Van Wymersch challenged criticism coming from tech moguls, and even by US President Donald Trump, that the EU regulatory crackdown on tech platforms is infringing freedom of speech and expression.
“If we accept that there is a digital space where these criminals can talk freely, we are really losing our freedom in the end,” she said.
Our enemy has no ‘values or ethical standards’
Van Wymersch has been serving for two years as Belgium’s Drug Commissioner, spearheading efforts to “put barriers in the logistic chains” of drug trafficking networks.
“I think this organised crime has a lot of faces, but only one heart (…) and the centre of gravity really is the money. These are the criminal assets,” she told Euronews.
She added that Belgium’s crackdown is having an impact, despite a sharp uptick in recent drug-related violence on the streets of the country’s two biggest cities, Brussels and Antwerp.
“I think the fact that they are getting nervous is because we are just focusing on their criminal assets because that’s really their reason for existing,” Van Wymersch explained.
Major figures leading Belgium’s crackdown have, in recent years, been forced into hiding due to the high-risk nature of their posts.
An Antwerp investigating judge who recently warned Belgium was becoming a “narco-state” was forced into hiding after receiving death threats from drug mafias. Former Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne was also offered protection along with his family on two occasions.
Asked if she felt her life was at risk in her job, Van Wymersch said: “We cannot be naive. The enemy we’re facing doesn’t have any kind of values or ethical standards. So we have to be aware of a security and a safety risk, of course.”