The trial of an international drug trafficking network allegedly led by Flor Bressers and Brazilian suspect Sergio Roberto de Carvalho is due to restart on Monday before the Bruges criminal court, following the replacement of the original judges.
The case will again open with a preliminary hearing at the Justitia complex in Haren, Brussels, where the timetable for the full hearings is expected to be set.
The original proceedings were halted in February after all three judges of the Bruges criminal court were successfully challenged and removed from the case.
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The investigation began in late 2019, when federal police discovered that Antwerp water treatment company Kriva Rochem was allegedly involved in importing cocaine from Brazil.
In early April 2020, Dutch authorities seized 3.2 tonnes of cocaine in the port of Rotterdam in containers loaded with manganese ore. On 17 June 2020, the 80-year-old head of Kriva Rochem and several of his relatives from Knokke-Heist were arrested.
Investigators later concluded that the 3.2-tonne shipment was only a fraction of the operation. Decoded messages from encrypted phones used by alleged gang members are said to have revealed around ten successful cocaine shipments.
According to the investigation, the organisation imported about 13,000kg of cocaine, generating an estimated turnover of €347 million and net profits of more than €260 million.
In November 2020, Europol said that as much as 45 tonnes of cocaine had been smuggled through European ports over a six-month period. During an international operation, 38 people were arrested in Brazil, while other suspects were detained in Belgium, Spain and Dubai.
Bressers, 37, from Limburg, is regarded as one of the central figures in the organisation. He was arrested in Switzerland in February 2022 and has remained in pre-trial detention since then.
De Carvalho, 65, who is described as a Brazilian drug baron, is also seen as one of the alleged leaders of the network. He was arrested in Hungary in June 2022 and extradited to Belgium a year later.
In total, 31 suspects have been referred to the Bruges criminal court. They include alleged lieutenants of Bressers, his girlfriend, and well-known former lawyer Pol Vandemeulebroucke.
The federal prosecutor’s office alleges that Vandemeulebroucke communicated extensively with Bressers, the main suspect, and passed him documents from the Kriva Rochem drug case while he was still on the run.
Another lawyer, Dutch national Cem Polat, is also being prosecuted for alleged participation in the criminal organisation. He is accused of sharing confidential information on three occasions, including Dutch police reports.
The case had been expected to come to court much earlier but was repeatedly delayed in recent months. One postponement followed an incident in September involving lawyer Louis De Groote and the presiding judge.
During that hearing, De Groote was refused permission to speak. After continuing to insist, he was eventually removed from the courtroom by force.
Since then, the judges originally assigned to the case have been successfully challenged, and the file is now being handled by a newly constituted court.
At three earlier hearings in March and April, the court dealt with a number of procedural issues. The defence also again questioned the strict security measures imposed on their clients.
In an interim ruling on 22 May, the court dismissed the procedural objections but said the security arrangements then in place had to be adjusted.
In principle, the court could begin examining the substance of the case on Monday. Hearings are scheduled to take place every working day from 10:00 until no later than 17:30.
