Belgium’s port in Antwerp, 35 miles (55 kilometers) to the north, has increasingly been the center of European imports of cocaine, and has been hit by grenade explosions linked to gangland fighting.

The port in Antwerp — 55 kilometres north of Brussels — is a hub for European imports of cocaine and has been hit by grenade explosions linked to gangland fighting.

Brussels’ Marolles is hardly ground zero of that trade and many of the 11,000 people living in its warren of narrow streets are among the poorest in the city of 1.2 million.

Lawyers arrives for a hearing before the court's verdict in the country's biggest ever drug trafficking trial at Brussels correctional court, at Justitia, in Brussels, on October 29, 2024.

Europe's capital has operated without a functioning government while drowning in debt equivalent to a major American city's ...

Former Belgium international Radja Nainggolan has been arrested as part of an investigation into cocaine trafficking into Europe, the Brussels public prosecutor's office said.