Europe’s top official monitoring illegal drugs has a parting message near the end of his tenure: the relentless rise in the trafficking of cocaine and other stimulants is producing more violence than ever before in the heart of the world’s safest societies.
Alexis Goosdeel, the Belgian clinician who has run the European Union Drugs Agency since Jan. 2016, has watched it unfold across the continent and spill into his home country. The bulk of drug seizures shifted from Europe's southern flank to its northern ports and, with Antwerp now a leading entry point for cocaine and crack, spreading gang violence has produced shootouts even near the seat of Europe’s government.
