Despite record cocaine seizures, drug cartels roil Europe

By RAF CASERT
Associated Press

ANTWERP, Belgium (AP) — Cocaine is spreading at an alarming rate through Europe, much of it through the world ports of Antwerp in Belgium and Rotterdam in the Netherlands. And Tuesday’s announcement of record seizures is also obscuring a bigger truth — that South American cartels are throwing ever more cocaine at the European market. With it comes not only addiction, decay and death, but also violence and gang warfare pushing neighborhoods to the brink and some of the highest ranking people in Belgium and the Netherlands into forced seclusion.