Dutch authorities have traced a record 4,500-kilogramme cocaine shipment seized at the Port of Amsterdam to a timber consignment from Ghana.
The drugs were intercepted on June 13, 2025, after Dutch customs officers selected a container for further inspection following a risk assessment.
Using scanning equipment and sniffer dogs, customs officials discovered the cocaine professionally concealed among timber inside the container.
Reports suggest although the shipment was initially described as having arrived from West Africa, subsequent investigations by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service established that the timber had been shipped from Ghana.
The 4,500-kilogramme haul has been described as the largest cocaine seizure ever recorded at the Port of Amsterdam.
The information gathered suggests Dutch prosecutors valued the seized cocaine at more than €112 million at wholesale prices, while its estimated street value was around €450 million.
The NL Times reported that the cocaine was subsequently destroyed.
Also, investigations into the shipment also revealed that the Ghanaian timber consignment was addressed to a company in Germany, which Dutch authorities suspected was being used as a front for international drug trafficking.
According to prosecutors, the company was registered in the name of a man who carried out no actual business activity and had allegedly been paid to have the company registered in his name.
Investigators examining the man’s phone reportedly uncovered information that helped them identify a 69-year-old resident of Amsterdam who was suspected of involvement in the shipment.
The suspect was arrested in October 2025, while other individuals were also brought under investigation.
The arrest was reported by the NL Times in November 2025 as Dutch authorities continued their investigations into the wider network behind the cocaine shipment.
The Amsterdam case was followed by another major cocaine seizure in November 2025.
Dutch prosecutors said more than 250 kilogrammes of cocaine were discovered in a food container shipped from Ghana and addressed to a company in the United Kingdom.
At the time, investigators said there was no indication that the intended UK recipient was involved in the shipment.
The second seizure was also reported by Dutch broadcaster AT5.
In other news, Ghana has been ranked the fifth-largest country of origin for cocaine seized at the port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2025.
According to Belgian customs figures, Ghana was the only African country on a list which made up of Latin American producers and transit states.
Reports by JoyNews Research detailed that “Belgian customs seized nearly 55 tonnes of cocaine at Antwerp last year, 24 per cent more than the 44 tonnes seized in 2024. Belgium’s Finance Minister, Jan Jambon, presented the figures on 21 January 2026. Ecuador, Costa Rica, Brazil and Colombia made up the rest of the top five, according to the breakdown reported by VRT, Belgium’s public broadcaster. VRT described Ghana as “de vreemde eend in de bijt”, the odd one out”.
“Antwerp is the main entry point for cocaine into Europe, and Belgian customs describe Belgium as the continent’s most important destination for cocaine shipped by sea. In customs figures, “country of origin” means the country where a container was loaded and shipped from, not where the drug was produced. None of the cocaine is grown in Ghana. It comes from the Andes and is hidden in legitimate Ghanaian exports.
Ghana’s ranking reflects a run of large seizures at Antwerp on cargo from Tema. In late November 2025, Belgian authorities found 2,829 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in cassava flour shipped from Tema. In December, a further 1,158 kilogrammes of suspected cocaine were found in a shipment from Ghana. Together the two seizures come to about 4 tonnes, roughly 7 per cent of all the cocaine seized at the port in 2025.
Ghana’s appearance on the list is new. A major 2022 analysis of Europe’s cocaine market by the European Union’s drugs agency and Europol named Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Benin, Sierra Leone and The Gambia as West African countries linked to large seizures. It did not mention Ghana.
The Belgian figures are part of a wider pattern of seizures abroad traced to Ghanaian ports”, the JoyNews report detailed.
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