The Netherlands has pulled out of U.S.-led counter-drug missions in the Caribbean, a reaction to the rising death toll from American military attacks on vessels suspected of being used to smuggle narcotics. Speaking Monday evening in Aruba, Defense Minister Ruben Brekelmans said Dutch forces would continue drug interdiction within Dutch territorial waters, but would not take part in U.S. operations on the high seas linked to Operation Southern Spear. The operation, launched in September, has killed more than 100 people in over 20 attacks on boats that the U.S. says  were ferrying drugs. “We have worked together with the Americans on counter-narcotics for many years, but in a different way,” Brekelmans said. “When we see drug smuggling, we try to arrest and prosecute those responsible. Not by shooting ships.” The move was first reported by the Dutch daily Trouw. The decision marks a break with past practice. For years, the Netherlands, which controls six islands in the Caribbean, cooperated closely with the United States and other partners in the region, including through the Joint Interagency Task Force South. Dutch defense forces and the coast guard worked with U.S. counterparts on surveillance, interdiction, arrests and extraditions. What has changed, Brekelmans said, is the method adopted by the Donald Trump administration. “Outside our territorial waters, we see that the Americans have now chosen a national route again,” he said. “The method and the operation the United States is carrying out now, they are really doing that themselves. We are not participating in that.” The move comes amid heightened tensions after the United States used military force to detain Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and escalate pressure on Caracas, prompting international criticism over violations of sovereignty and international law. Brekelmans said Dutch defense planners were closely watching developments between Washington and Caracas, but stressed there is currently no military threat from Venezuela toward the Dutch Caribbean islands. “We must always be prepared for different scenarios,” he said, noting that rising tensions can affect airspace and regional stability. “But you also have to look realistically at what the actual threats are.” Brekelmans made clear the Netherlands would not provide facilities, helicopters or other support if requested for Southern Spear. “If it is part of that operation, then that is not something we agree to,” he said. “For this operation, we are not making our facilities available.” CNN reported in November that London had suspended some intelligence sharing with the United States after Washington began launching lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

President Donald Trump on Saturday morning (EST) celebrated the capture of Nicolas Maduro, hailing the operation as an “amazing job” by the U.S. military after the Venezuelan president unsuccessfully tried to negotiate. “I watched it literally like I was watching a television show,” the president said in an interview on Fox News hours after he posted on Truth Social that the U.S. had successfully carried out a large-scale strike against the Latin American nation. The dramatic turn of events caps a months-long pressure campaign by the Trump administration against Venezuela, which began in September with military strikes in the Caribbean Sea to kill alleged drug traffickers on boats. At that time, Trump said the U.S. was focused on stopping the flow of drugs and “not talking about” regime change, a point that drew skepticism from Democrats as well as conservative MAGA voices who oppose foreign intervention by the U.S. “We did a great job. We’re stopping drugs from coming into this country,” Trump said, a point his closest allies repeated Saturday in defense of the raid. In his interview with Fox, Trump said Maduro hoped to negotiate in the final days before U.S. forces captured him, and that the two men had spoken. “He wanted to negotiate at the end and I didn’t want to negotiate,” Trump said. He told Maduro that he had to “give up” and it was “close, but in the end … we had to do something that was much more surgical, much more powerful.” The overnight raid stunned other global leaders, who responded Saturday with a mix of condemnation — particularly from those in the region — and some praise from allies. Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly criticized the move, saying it was done without the authorization or consultation with Congress. But some Republican hawks, particularly those in Florida, praised Trump for his leadership Even Steve Bannon, a close Trump ally who has broadly opposed proposals for deeper U.S. military engagement in global crises, praised the move, calling the raids “bold and brilliant.” The attack was initially planned to take place four days ago, Trump said, but the weather “was not perfect. The weather has to be perfect,” adding that there were no U.S. military fatalities or loss of aircraft during the strikes. Attorney General Pam Bondi confirmed that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are expected to be indicted in New York, where prosecutors originally indicted him years earlier. Bondi said Maduro is being charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices against the United States. Trump told Fox that Maduro and Flores were flown out of Venezuela, onto the USS Iwo Jima, a U.S. Navy warship, and will be heading to New York. U.S. officials are deciding now how to be involved in the selection of a new leader. “We can’t take a chance of letting somebody else run it and just take over what he left,” Trump said, “We’ll be involved in it very much.” Trump wouldn’t say if the U.S. would support Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who received the Nobel Peace Prize last year and dedicated it to Trump. The president is expected to deliver a press conference Saturday morning (EST) from Mar-a-Lago. Ali Bianco contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday that Venezuela’s leader Nicolás Maduro has been charged with drug trafficking and “will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts.” Bondi wrote in a social media post that Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been charged by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office with narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of machineguns and destructive devices, among other charges. The announcement came after President Donald Trump said the U.S. carried out “a large-scale strike” in Venezuela and had captured and flown the pair out of the country. An indictment didn’t appear to be unsealed by mid-morning Saturday. A spokesperson for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. U.S. officials appeared to be using the charges as legal justification for the strike in Venezuela, which occurred without congressional authorization. Vice President JD Vance wrote on social media that the U.S. had offered Venezuela “multiple off ramps.” “And PSA for everyone saying this was ‘illegal’: Maduro has multiple indictments in the United States for narcoterrorism. You don’t get to avoid justice for drug trafficking in the United States because you live in a palace in Caracas.” Early Saturday morning, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted his own social media message from last year referencing charges against Maduro, writing that he is “NOT the president of Venezuela and and his regime is NOT the legitimate government.” New York federal prosecutors, along with prosecutors in D.C. and Florida, in 2020 charged Maduro and 14 other current and former Venezuelan officials — although not Maduro’s wife — with narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking. One of the prosecutors who led that case, Amanda Houle, is now the criminal chief at the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office. The investigation was supervised by Emil Bove, Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer and a former prominent Justice Department official who is now a federal judge. The fresh charges against Maduro come weeks after Trump issued an unexpected and controversial pardon to another former foreign leader whom Bove pursued as a prosecutor: Juan Orlando Hernández, the ex-president of Honduras. Hernández had been convicted in 2024 for conspiring to import cocaine into the U.S.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, giving the U.S. government additional legal firepower in its efforts to combat illegal trafficking of the synthetic drug. The executive order cites the lethality of the drug, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, and the fact that transnational criminal groups the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations use the sale of fentanyl to fund activities that undermine U.S. national security. Speaking in the Oval Office as he signed the order, the president said the amount of drugs coming into the U.S. by sea has decreased by 94 percent (most drugs, including fentanyl, enter the U.S. via land ports of entry). Trump added that drug flows are “a direct military threat to the United States of America.” The administration has focused considerable resources on combating fentanyl as part of its efforts to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. Top administration officials have argued that Trump’s strict immigration limits and border security measures have led to a drop in domestic consumption of fentanyl. “With a secure border, lives are being saved every day, sex trafficking has plummeted, fentanyl has plummeted,” White House border czar Tom Homan said Monday. While classifying a narcotic as a WMD is a nearly unprecedented presidential action, there has been public debate about characterizing fentanyl that way before. The Biden administration had previously faced pressure from a bipartisan contingent of attorneys general to classify fentanyl as a WMD. And fentanyl, even in tiny quantities, is potent enough to kill large numbers of people very quickly through overdoses. The synthetic drug, which has some limited legal pharmacological uses, mostly comes to the United States via Mexico, where drug cartels manufacture fentanyl using “precursor chemicals” imported from China. Fentanyl production is also booming in the Golden Triangle region of southeast Asia, which includes the countries of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Fentanyl can be easily made in makeshift labs, adding to the challenge authorities have faced in eradicating production within their borders. The administration, meanwhile, has accused cartels operating in Venezuela of trafficking fentanyl into the United States as a justification for the use of lethal force against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela, while seen as a hub for cocaine trafficking, is not viewed as a major contributor to global fentanyl trafficking. The timing of the designation is striking, as speculation mounts that the U.S. will carry out land strikes against alleged drug trafficking targets on Venezuelan soil as part of its pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction would give the U.S. additional legal justification to use military force against Venezuela. Claims that Iraq still possessed WMDs were used as a legal justification for the invasion of the Middle Eastern country and the overthrow of its then-leader Saddam Hussein under the George W. Bush administration. The U.S. has also previously floated military strikes against Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, and it has been expected that the U.S. will eventually turn its focus away from Venezuela toward threats from groups in those countries.

President Donald Trump ratcheted up his threats against Colombia on Wednesday, telling reporters Colombian President Gustavo Petro is “next” in the White House’s regional campaign against drug trafficking. While initially, Trump told reporters “I haven’t really thought too much about” Petro, his comments quickly swerved into serious saber-rattling against the Colombian leader. “Colombia is producing a lot of drugs,” Trump said. “So he better wise up or he’ll be next. He’ll be next soon. I hope he’s listening, he’s going to be next.” Trump’s comments mark a sharp escalation of Trump’s threats against the Colombian leader. In a conversation with POLITICO earlier this week, the U.S. president floated expanding his anti-drug trafficking military operation — which have so far been focused on Venezuela — to Mexico and Colombia. Trump has overseen a slate of strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since September and launched a massive buildup of military power off the coast of Venezuela in an attempt to pressure the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, to leave office. Tensions between Trump and Petro escalated this fall amid the U.S.’s aggressive campaign against drug trafficking in the region. The Trump administration decertified Colombia as a drug control partner and revoked Petro’s visa in September, slashing aid to the country and bashing its leader as an “illegal drug dealer” the following month. Though Trump has made clear he wants Petro out of office, he could get his wish without having to follow through on his threats. The Colombian leader is term-limited — and the country is set to head to the polls for its presidential election in May. The Colombian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BRUSSELS — The EU will start using high-resolution satellites and the latest drone technology to crack down on drugs smuggled through its borders, as cocaine and synthetic drugs swarm European capitals and the bloc grapples with growing drug trafficking violence. “When it comes to illegal drugs, Europe is reaching a crisis point,” said European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner on Thursday, while presenting the new EU Drugs Strategy and action plan against drug trafficking. They lay out actions to boost international cooperation, stop the import of illicit drugs, dismantle production sites, curb recruitment of young people to criminal networks and tackle the growing drug-related violence that has taken capitals hostage. As gang networks evolve and drug traffickers constantly find new “loopholes” to bring their drugs into Europe, the EU and countries will work with customs, agencies and the private sector to better monitor and disrupt trafficking routes across land, sea or air. This includes using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to find drugs sent via mail, monitoring aviation and publishing its upcoming EU Ports Strategy for port security. EU border security agency Frontex will get “state of the art resources,” said Brunner, including high-resolution satellites and drones. “Drug traffickers use the latest technologies, which means we need innovation to beat them,” Brunner said. To stay up to date, the European Commission is establishing a Security and Innovation Campus to boost research and test cutting-edge technologies in 2026. “We send the drug lords and their organizations a clear message: Europe is fighting back,” Brunner said. On top of the increased import of illegal drugs, Europe is grappling with the growing in-house production of synthetic drugs, with authorities dismantling up to 500 labs every year. To tackle this, the European Union Drugs Agency will develop a European database on drug production incidents and an EU-wide substance database to help countries identify synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals. The EU is also looking at its existing laws, evaluating the current rules against organized crime and the existing Framework Decision on drug trafficking by 2026. The EUDA’s new European drug alert system, launched a couple of weeks ago, will also help issue alerts on serious drug-related risks, such as highly potent synthetic drugs; while its EU early warning system will help identify new substances and quickly inform the capitals. Europe is grappling with a surge in the availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The quantity of drugs seized in the EU has increased dramatically between 2013 and 2023, the commissioner said, with authorities seizing 419 metric tons of cocaine in 2023 — six times more than the previous decade. But it’s not just the drugs — illicit drug trafficking comes with “bloodshed, violence, corruption, and social harm,” Brunner said. Criminal networks are increasingly recruiting young and vulnerable people, often using social media platforms. To fight this, the EU will launch an EU-wide platform to “stop young people being drawn into drug trafficking,” connecting experts across Europe. “I think that is key — to get engaged with the young people at an early stage, to prevent them getting into the use of drugs,” Brunner said. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. “Already too many have been lost to death, addiction and violence caused by traffickers. Now is the time for us to turn the tides,” he added.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is set to publish a package of measures in December to further clamp down on the flow and production of street drugs in the EU, as drug-related violence in countries like Belgium or the Netherlands surges. New rules on the precursor chemicals used to manufacture drugs, an EU Drugs Strategy, and a European action plan against drug trafficking are scheduled to land Dec. 3, according to the latest Commission agenda released Monday. “Both the new strategy on drugs and the new legislation on precursors are in preparation,” the EU Drugs Agency told POLITICO in a statement. The Commission’s home affairs department is leading the new drug strategy and trafficking plan, while its tax department is delivering the proposal on drug precursors, EUDA said. The current drugs strategy has guided the EU’s priorities in the area since 2021 but it will expire this year. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. Europe is grappling with a surge in availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp serve as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Europe. Criminals within Europe are is increasingly manufacturing their own synthetic drugs using precursor chemicals, while seizures of trafficked drugs have also been soaring. The EU Drugs Agency reported that in 2023, EU member countries recorded a record-high amount of cocaine seized for the seventh year in a row. While seizures of precursor chemicals have more than tripled in the several years preceding 2023. In the wake of Europe’s cocaine market more than quadrupling between 2011 and 2021, the Commission in 2023 proposed a plan to combat drug trafficking, which includes strengthening cooperation with Latin American countries, establishing a network of specialized prosecutors and judges, and investing additional funds in upgrading customs equipment. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. has been struggling with fentanyl, a synthetic drug estimated to be 50 times stronger than heroin. The U.S. has imposed tariffs, especially on Chinese goods tied to fentanyl precursor chemicals, as a trade pressure tool to curb their flow into the country. Former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in 2023 that Europe will soon have to deal with the same problem. The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. U.S. President Donald Trump loves the 19th century. His heroes are former presidents William McKinley who “made our country very rich through tariffs,” Teddy Roosevelt who “did many great things” like the Panama Canal, and James Monroe who established the policy rejecting “the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.” These aren’t just some throw-away lines from Trump’s speeches. They signify a much deeper and broader break from established modern national security thinking. Trump is now the first U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to believe the principal threats to the U.S. aren’t in far-away regions or stem from far-away powers — rather, they’re right here at home. For him, the biggest threats to America today are the immigrants flooding across the country’s borders and the drugs killing tens of thousands from overdoses. And to that end, his real goal is to dominate the entire Western hemisphere — from the North Pole to the South Pole — using America’s superior military and economic power to defeat all “enemies,” both foreign and domestic. Of course, at the top of Trump’s list of threats to the U.S. is immigration. He campaigned incessantly on the idea that his predecessors had failed to seal the southern border, and promised to deport every immigrant without legal status — some 11 million in all — from the U.S. Those efforts started on the first day, with the Trump administration deploying troops to the southern border to interdict anyone seeking to cross illegally. It also instituted a dragnet to sweep people off the streets — whether in churches, near schools, on farmlands, inside factories, at court houses or in hospitals. Even U.S. citizens have been caught up in this massive deportation effort. No one is safe. The resulting shift is also expectedly dramatic: Refugee admissions have halted, with those promised passage stuck in third countries. In the coming year, the only allotment for refugees will be white South Africans, who Trump has depicted as genocide victims. Illegal crossings are down to a trickle, while large numbers of immigrants — legal as well as illegal — are returning home. And 2025 will likely be the first time in nearly a century where net migration into the U.S. will be negative. For Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. That’s why on Feb. 1, the U.S. leader imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China because of fentanyl shipments — though Canada is hardly a significant source of the deadly narcotic. Still, all these tariffs remain in place. Then, in August, he called in the military, signing a directive that authorizes it to take on drug cartels, which he designated as foreign terrorist organizations. “Latin America’s got a lot of cartels and they’ve got a lot of drugs flowing,” he later explained. “So, you know, we want to protect our country. We have to protect our country.” And that was just the beginning. Over the past two months, the Pentagon has deployed a massive array of naval and air power, and some 10,000 troops for drug interdiction. Over the past five weeks, the U.S. military has also been directed to attack small vessels crossing the Caribbean and the Pacific that were suspected to be running drugs. To date, 16 vessels have been attacked, killing over 60 people. For Donal Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. | oe Raedle/Getty Images When asked for the legal justification of targeting vessels in international waters that posed no imminent threat to the U.S., Trump dismissed the need: “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them. You know, they’re going to be, like, dead.” But now the U.S. leader has set his sights on bigger fish. Late last month, the Pentagon ordered a carrier battle group, Gerald R. Ford, into the Caribbean. Once that carrier and its accompanying ships arrive at their destination later this week, the U.S. will have deployed one-seventh of its Navy — the largest such deployment in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. If the target is just drug-runners in open waters, clearly this is overkill — but they aren’t. The real reason for deploying such overwhelming firepower is for Trump to intimidate the leaders and regimes he doesn’t like, if not actually force them from office. Drugs are just the excuse to enable such action. The most obvious target is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, who blatantly stole an election to retain power last year. The White House has declared Maduro “an illegitimate leader heading an illegitimate regime,” and Trump has made clear that “there will be land action in Venezuela soon.” However, Maduro isn’t the only one Trump has his eye on. After Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of killing innocent fishermen, Trump cut off all aid to the country and accused Petro of being “an illegal drug leader,” which potentially sets the stage for the U.S. to go after another regime. All this firepower and rhetoric is meant to underscore one point: To Trump, the entire Western hemisphere is America’s. Leaders he doesn’t like, he will remove from power. Countries that take action he doesn’t approve of — whether jailing those convicted of trying to overthrow a government like in Brazil, or running ads against his tariffs as in Canada — will be punished economically. Greenland will be part of the U.S., as will the Panama Canal, and Canada will become the 51st state. Overall, Trump’s focus on dominating the Western hemisphere represents a profound shift from nearly a century’s-long focus on warding off overseas threats to protect Americans at home. And like it or not, for Trump, security in the second quarter of the 21st century lies in concepts and ideas first developed in the last quarter of the 19th century.

ANTWERP — Prime Minister Bart De Wever needs to get serious about the fraying rule of law in Belgium, a top judge said Tuesday. Bart Willocx, whose role is first president of the Antwerp Court of Appeal, told POLITICO in an interview that the Belgian justice system must be funded properly — after “decades” of under-financing — to fight a rising tide of drug-fueled violence and corruption. “Help us to secure the functioning of justice … We need budget, otherwise there are problems for normal citizens and functioning and it won’t end in a good way,” Willocx said, when asked what message he had for the Belgian government, which is currently locked in intractable budget talks. Willocx said that the rule of law in Belgium, like elsewhere in Europe and the U.S., is under pressure. “A very simple way to suppress the courts is when you don’t give them enough budget, because then they are not working well, they can’t do what they should do,” he said. His blunt intervention comes the day after another Antwerp judge published an anonymous letter decrying that Belgium was on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.” De Wever, prime minister since February this year, spent more than a decade as mayor of Antwerp demanding more federal money to address narcotics-related issues, but Willocx notes action hasn’t been forthcoming since he ascended to the Belgian premiership. “He was the mayor and now he is the prime minister. I’m sure that safety and security and these kind of things are very important to him, but we ask his government to invest more, to stop this,” said Willocx. “As a mayor he said we need money from the federal government, but now he is the prime minister … We are waiting and he refers to the minister of justice, and the minister of justice refers to the government, but we are waiting for more support,” he added, exasperatedly. De Wever’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the judge’s criticism. The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics — particularly cocaine coming from Latin America — to enter Europe, and turf wars have spilled onto streets across Belgium, with shootings and bombings taking place both in Antwerp and Brussels. Complicating the quest to solve the problem, De Wever is embroiled in tense negotiations with coalition partners to hammer out a new budget to balance Belgium’s strained finances. He has given the parties until Nov. 6 to resolve the budget crisis and threatened to quit if there is no agreement. Belgium is one of four eurozone countries that failed to deliver its draft budget by the European Commission’s Oct. 15 deadline. In Willocx’s opinion, gangs have been successful in corrupting officials like port workers, police and customs agents, and in order to tackle the society-wide problem, money must be invested in overcrowded prisons and social rehabilitation. Employees of the courts and the public prosecution service have been leading a campaign to highlight the issues for months now, and recently published a list of 100 proposals to be addressed. “We have a certain power and responsibility and we want to do it in a way that is serving our society and in this moment we see important risks. If this doesn’t change, we won’t be able to do what we should do,” Willocx warned. “We don’t do this only for ourselves. When you become a magistrate, it’s not to become rich or get power, but to push things in a better direction. We want to secure normal citizens so they are not afraid,” Willocx said.

Drug-trafficking is turning Belgium into a narco-state and the rule of law is under threat, an Antwerp judge wrote in an anonymous letter published Monday asking the federal government for urgent help. “What is happening today in our district and beyond is no longer a classic crime issue. We are facing an organized threat that undermines our institutions,” the investigating judge wrote in the missive published on the official website of the Belgian court system. “Extensive mafia-like structures have taken root, becoming a parallel power that challenges not only the police but also the judiciary. The consequences are serious: are we evolving into a narco-state? No way, you think? Exaggerated? According to our drug commissioner, this evolution is already underway. My colleagues and I share that concern,” the judge added. The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Belgium — and Europe more widely. Brussels, the country’s capital, has been plagued by a spate of drug-related shootings, with more than 60 incidents this year alone, 20 of them occurring just this summer. In response to the bloodbath, Belgium’s Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said he wants to deploy soldiers on the streets of Brussels. Earlier this year, the Belgian government approved a merger of Brussels’ six police zones into a single unit, set to take effect in early 2027, to tackle the scourge of violence. In the anonymous letter, the judge goes on to note that a narco-state is characterized by an illegal economy, corruption and violence — conditions that Belgium fulfills, in the judge’s opinion. The judge notes that money-laundering networks drive up real-estate costs, the corruption penetrates state institutions and kidnappings can be ordered on Snapchat. “This bribery seeps into our institutions. The cases I have led in recent years — and I am just one of 17 investigative judges in Antwerp — have resulted in arrests of employees in key port positions, customs officers, police officers, municipal clerks, and, regrettably, even justice system staff, both inside prisons and right here in this building,” the judge’s letter reads. “A home attack with a bomb or weapons of war, a home invasion, or a kidnapping are all easily ordered online. You don’t even need to go to the dark web; a Snapchat account is all it takes,” the judge added.