Rotterdam is one of the most important centres for the global cocaine trade and between 25% and 50% of western and central European consumption is smuggled through the port city, according to Dutch police.

The police base their claim on 2013 drug seizures which show Rotterdam has overtaken Antwerp as the centre of the western European trade. The claim was made at a seminair on the cocaine trade, the Volkskrant reports on Wednesday.

Last year Belgian police seized 4,800 kilos of cocaine in Antwerp while Rotterdam seizures totalled almost 10,000 kilos. But in 2012, Dutch police found just 3,600 kilos of cocaine in Rotterdam, compared with 18,000 kilos in Antwerp.

11 million containers

The police stress that the exact volume of cocaine imports is hard to quantify. Only 50,000 of the 11 million containers which reach the port every year are scanned, on the basis of a risk profile.

Rotterdam professor of criminology Henk van de Bunt told the paper the focus on Schiphol airport may have influenced the switch to Rotterdam.

All passengers arriving from Curacao, the Dutch Antilles, Venezuela and Suriname are checked for drugs. This has led to a 33% drop in smuggling, Van de Bunt said.

Criminologist Damian Zaitch from Utrecht University said he thinks the Netherlands has got its priorities wrong. ‘Just 5% of cocaine smuggling is airborne so why do we pay so much attention to Schiphol?’ he is quoted as saying. ‘It would be sensible to switch this effort to Rotterdam.’