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.

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.

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.

Méabh Mc Mahon September 13, 2024 at 2:25 PM·2 min read Brussels’ first consumption centre aims to keep drugs off streets of EU capital ...

The European Union Drugs Agency’s annual report released on Thursday found that in 2023 cocaine seizures in Europe hit a record for a seventh straight year, with 419 tonnes (462 tons) of cocaine ...