Cocaine extractor

Template:Prod llm/dated Cocaine extractors or Coke runners, known in Dutch as uithalers (literally "those who take out"), are individuals who enter restricted port and container terminal areas to retrieve cocaine hidden in shipping containers. The practice has become a major security concern in European seaports since the 2010s, particularly in the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, which serve as primary entry points for South American cocaine destined for the European market.

Background

File:Containers Rotterdam.JPG

Stacked containers at the Port of Rotterdam, Europe's largest seaport and a primary entry point for cocaine smuggled from South America

Approximately 90% of cocaine produced worldwide is transported by sea, with European ports processing an estimated 750 million containers annually, of which fewer than 2% are physically inspected. This low inspection rate has made container shipping the dominant method of cocaine trafficking into Europe, having overtaken older techniques such as air couriers and "mothership" operations using fishing vessels. According to Europol, over 70% of cocaine entering Europe arrives through the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam.

The cocaine is typically hidden in shipping containers at South American ports of departure using the so-called "rip-on/rip-off" method. Traffickers, often with the complicity of corrupt port workers, break open containers carrying legitimate goods, insert bags of cocaine, and reseal them with cloned customs seals. Once the container arrives at a European port, the drugs must be retrieved before customs inspection or delivery to the legitimate consignee. This final retrieval step is where uithalers come in.

Modus operandi

Entering the port

Cocaine extractors use several methods to gain access to secured container terminals. The most common involves assistance from corrupt port employees, including truck drivers, security guards, and customs officers, who may lend or sell their access passes or relay information about container locations and scanning schedules. Extractors may also enter port areas by climbing fences or swimming to the quays.

A more elaborate technique involves so-called "Trojan containers," where extraction crews hide themselves inside an outbound container and wait, sometimes for several days, until the targeted shipment arrives and they can access it. In 2024, eight Trojan containers were discovered in Rotterdam, while thirteen were found in Antwerp; by 2025, the use of this method had declined significantly in Rotterdam, with none detected that year. Criminal networks have also hacked into port IT systems and exploited container PIN code systems to redirect containers to locations where retrieval is easier.

According to a 2023 Europol report, corrupt port insiders who are considered essential links in the extraction chain can receive between 7 and 15% of the value of the smuggled load, while crane operators and those with IT access are among the most highly paid.

Retrieving the drugs

Once inside the terminal, extractors locate the targeted container using GPS coordinates or information provided by their handlers. Cocaine is frequently hidden in the motor compartments of refrigerated containers ("reefers") or among perishable cargo such as bananas and other fruits, which are given priority handling at ports due to their time-sensitive nature. In the port of Vlissingen, which maintains a direct shipping line with South America, nearly all cocaine seizures in 2025 involved shipments hidden among bananas. Some extraction crews have refined their techniques to the point where they can open a container, remove up to 100 kilograms of cocaine, and reseal it within three minutes.

Extractors typically carry tools such as flashlights, bolt cutters, and socket wrenches to open containers. The drugs are placed in gym bags or sports bags and transported out of the port area on foot, by vehicle, or with the assistance of a corrupt employee.

Scale and demographics

File:Containers in Deurganckdok.jpg

Shipping containers at Deurganckdok, Port of Antwerp. The terminal has been a major site for cocaine extraction operations.

Rotterdam

The Port of Rotterdam first observed cocaine extractors around 2019-2020, initially in small numbers. By 2021, the practice had escalated dramatically, with groups of ten to twelve individuals entering the port several times per week. In 2021, approximately 400 uithalers were arrested in the port. This figure decreased to 251 in 2022, rose to 452 in 2023, and then fell to 266 in 2024 and 80 in 2025. The sharp decline in 2025 has been attributed to tightened security measures, including the use of drones and smart cameras.

According to the Dutch public prosecution service, the largest share of arrested extractors (42%) are between 18 and 22 years old. Most come from Rotterdam, with some from The Hague and Amsterdam. Many are from vulnerable families with debts and links to criminality. In 2024, 59 of the 266 arrested extractors in Rotterdam were minors; the youngest was 14 and the oldest was 63. In 2025, 18 of the 80 arrested were minors, the youngest being 13 years old; over half (58%) were under 22.

A study published by the CBS (Statistics Netherlands) in April 2026, based on data from the Seaport Police, found that the share of minors among arrested extractors in the Netherlands had risen from 1% in 2020 to over 22% in 2025. The study also found that extractors disproportionately come from single-parent households, neighbourhoods with relatively high crime rates, and backgrounds involving early school dropout, prior contact with the justice system, or personal debt.

Antwerp

The Port of Antwerp has become an increasingly prominent target for cocaine traffickers and extractors, particularly after Rotterdam tightened security. In 2023, Antwerp authorities seized a record 121.1 tonnes of cocaine, more than double the quantity from five years earlier. This figure fell sharply to 44.3 tonnes in 2024.

In 2024, Belgian police made 128 drug-related arrests in the Antwerp port area, of which 98 involved extractors and 13 were apprehended in Trojan containers; 16 of the 128 arrestees were minors. In the first half of 2025, Belgian authorities arrested a record 166 suspected uithalers at Antwerp. Nearly half held Dutch nationality, and 37 were minors, of whom 22 were Dutch. For the whole of 2025, the Antwerp port saw a record 207 drug-related arrests, including 191 extractors and 6 persons found in Trojan containers; 41 of the arrestees were minors.

Belgian police have noted that cocaine shipments are increasingly being divided into smaller consignments, requiring more frequent extraction operations. Rather than multi-tonne shipments, authorities now typically encounter loads of 50 to 60 bricks that fit in a single gym bag, with multiple small groups of two or three extractors being sent in on successive nights.

Recruitment of minors

A growing concern for law enforcement is the recruitment of minors for extraction work. Criminal organisations deliberately target vulnerable young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, often recruiting them through social media platforms such as Snapchat and Telegram. Some are offered between €5,000 and €20,000 for a single operation, while others participate for as little as €50, a smartphone, or a gaming console. According to Belgian police and lawyers representing young suspects, the recruiters also lure teenagers with luxury clothing, iPhones, or fatbikes. The youngest extractor arrested in Antwerp in 2025 was 13 years old, while Rotterdam had previously seen a 14-year-old apprehended on the Maasvlakte terminal.

According to Belgian federal police, the criminal organisations responsible view these young recruits as expendable. If they are caught, they are immediately abandoned by the networks that sent them. A youth lawyer in Antwerp told VRT NWS that many of the young extractors are not fully aware of the prison sentences they face, nor of the physical dangers involved in entering a busy port terminal at night.

In December 2024, Europol warned that the recruitment of minors into serious and organised crime had become a deliberate tactic across European criminal markets. In April 2025, Europol launched Operational Task Force GRIMM, specifically targeting the exploitation of minors by organised crime networks, with Belgian federal judicial police among the participants.

Legal responses

The Netherlands: Uithalerswet

Prior to 2022, individuals found on Dutch port premises without authorisation could only be fined for trespassing, and some extractors would return to the port the very next day. To address this, the Netherlands introduced the Uithalerswet (Extractor Law) on 1 January 2022, codified as Article 138aa of the Wetboek van Strafrecht (Dutch Penal Code). Under this legislation, unauthorised presence on port or airport grounds with suspected intent to extract drugs can be punished with up to one year of imprisonment. The use of falsified access documents increases the maximum penalty to two years.

The law allows prosecution even when no drugs are found on the suspect, a significant shift from the previous situation where physical possession of narcotics was required for a serious charge. Dutch authorities have indicated that the law has had a measurable deterrent effect on the number of extraction attempts. However, the CBS study noted concerns among police and prosecution officials that the increased penalties may have had the unintended consequence of making vulnerable young people more attractive recruits for criminal organisations, since minors face lighter sentences in practice.

Belgium

Belgian law similarly does not require suspects to be caught with drugs in their possession to be convicted of extraction-related offences. Being found in a restricted terminal area under suspicious circumstances is sufficient for prosecution. Belgian courts impose substantially heavier sentences than their Dutch counterparts: adults caught on the port premises typically receive an average prison sentence of 40 months, while minors can be held in juvenile detention for weeks or months. Extractors in Belgium face prison sentences of up to four years. This sentencing disparity has contributed to the displacement of extraction activity from Rotterdam toward Antwerp, as criminal organisations calculate the risk differently for each jurisdiction.

Displacement to other ports

As security has tightened at Rotterdam and Antwerp, traffickers have increasingly shifted cocaine flows to other European ports. Dutch authorities have noted that the decline in seizures at Rotterdam does not necessarily indicate a reduction in overall trafficking volumes, but rather a displacement effect. In France, the port of Le Havre has emerged as a major entry point for cocaine: seizures there nearly tripled from 5.3 tonnes in 2023 to 14.4 tonnes in 2024, and France recorded a record 53.5 tonnes of cocaine seized nationally that year, 78% of which was intercepted at seaports. Trafficking has also been observed at smaller or previously less-targeted ports such as Vlissingen, Southampton, Helsingborg, and others across southern Europe.

A November 2025 analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime cautioned that the declining seizure figures in northwestern Europe should not be interpreted as a victory, but rather as evidence of criminal adaptation, with traffickers diversifying routes and adopting new concealment methods such as dissolving cocaine in liquids or embedding it in packaging materials.

Broader context and associated violence

The cocaine extraction phenomenon is part of a wider pattern of organised crime infiltration of European ports. Europol has estimated that at least 200 tonnes of cocaine have been successfully trafficked through the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam in recent years through the misuse of container reference codes alone. A 2025 report by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) found that cocaine accounted for approximately 82% of all drugs intercepted at EU seaports, with Antwerp and Rotterdam alone accounting for 443 tonnes and 181 tonnes of cocaine seizures respectively during the monitoring period.

The trade has been accompanied by escalating violence in port cities. Rotterdam, Antwerp, and other European hubs have experienced gang killings, bombings, and grenade attacks connected to disputes over cocaine shipments. In the Netherlands, the cocaine trade is closely linked to the wider phenomenon of ondermijning (subversive organised crime), which has led to high-profile events including the assassination of investigative journalist Peter R. de Vries in 2021.

Countermeasures

File:Automated guided vehicle container mover at Port of Rotterdam.JPG

An automated guided vehicle at the Port of Rotterdam. Increased automation is part of efforts to reduce the role of corrupt insiders in drug extraction.

In addition to legislative changes, authorities in Rotterdam have implemented several operational measures. The Information Sharing Center (ISC) for Port Safety and Security, established in 2014, brings together container terminal operators, seaport police, and customs officials every six weeks to share intelligence on drug trafficking activity. The "Secure Chain" project enables participants across the logistics supply chain to digitally exchange authorisation for container release and collection, replacing the older PIN code system that criminals had learned to exploit.

Rotterdam has also deployed technological countermeasures, including drones, smart cameras with vehicle and facial recognition capabilities, and underwater robots, creating what the city has described as a "virtual fence" around port terminals. The drone programme, initially piloted in 2022, proved effective enough to be expanded to national coverage by the Dutch customs service.

In Antwerp, the Belgian government established a dedicated Port Security Corps (Havenbeveiligingskorps) within the Federal Maritime Police in May 2023 to reinforce patrols and improve detection of extractors. Consisting of 70 newly recruited security officers, the corps became fully operational in 2024 and patrols the port area around the clock. In March 2024, a dedicated investigative unit was added to the Maritime Police in Antwerp to support the Federal Judicial Police in drug trafficking cases.

At the European level, the European Ports Alliance, a public-private partnership, was launched in January 2024 during the Belgian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, bringing together Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain to coordinate anti-drug-trafficking efforts at ports. A third ministerial meeting, hosted in Hamburg in May 2024 by German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser together with the mayors of Hamburg, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, focused on strengthening port resilience and cooperation with Latin American source countries.

Operation TIN CAN, a joint international enforcement action coordinated by the World Customs Organization, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and the Australian Border Force in November-December 2022, involved 58 countries and resulted in 43 arrests and the seizure of over 98 tonnes of cocaine. The operation confirmed that rip-on/rip-off is the preferred smuggling method globally and demonstrated the value of cooperation between customs agencies and shipping lines.

See also

• Maritime cocaine smuggling
• Drug trafficking
• Port of Rotterdam
• Port of Antwerp
• Organized crime in the Netherlands
• Mocro Mafia

References

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