# Short-Term Rental Apartments Are Being Used as Drug Stash Houses, Belgium's Top Drug Official Says > Belgium's national drug commissioner says criminal networks are booking short-term rentals to store cocaine, cash and weapons while cargo shipments move through the port of Antwerp, exploiting the same flexibility that makes the platforms popular with tourists. - Source: Belgium Crown - Canonical URL: https://belgiumcrown.com/article/short-term-rental-apartments-are-being-used-as-drug-stash-houses-belgium-s-top-drug-official-says - Author: Belgium Crown Staff - Section: Politics - Published: 2026-08-13T19:34:49.597Z - Updated: 2026-08-13T19:34:49.597Z - Tags: organized crime, drug trafficking, Airbnb, Antwerp, police --- Belgium's national drug commissioner has warned that short-term rental apartments, the kind typically booked through platforms like Airbnb, are increasingly being used by organized crime as temporary stash houses for drugs, weapons and cash. Ine Van Wymersch, who leads the country's fight against drug trafficking, said criminal groups have found the flexibility of short-term bookings useful for timing that is otherwise hard to control. A shipment arriving at the port of Antwerp does not keep to a fixed schedule, so a gang can book an apartment for a few days, cancel for free if a delivery is delayed or redirected to another port, and use the flat to receive, sort or repackage a shipment without renting anywhere long term. ## Recent seizures point to a pattern In early August, police recovered roughly 3.3 kilograms of cocaine and close to 4,850 euros in cash from a Brussels apartment rented through Airbnb, which investigators believe had been used to store and package drugs, according to the Belgian news agency Belga. The case echoes a larger one from 2024, when eleven people were convicted over a cross-Channel trafficking operation between Belgium and the United Kingdom, and drugs worth an estimated 21 million euros were traced back to a short-term rental in the West Flanders town of Staden. A representative for Airbnb in Belgium declined to comment directly, pointing instead to comments from the company's country manager for France and the Benelux region, who told a Flemish newspaper that criminal bookings remain an extreme minority among the millions the platform processes each year. He said the company uses artificial intelligence to flag suspicious reservations and passes reports of problem renters on to police. ## One tool among many Van Wymersch said rental platforms are just one part of a wider set of everyday digital tools that has made life easier for organized crime, alongside anonymous email accounts, encrypted messaging, cryptocurrency and the sheer volume of parcel deliveries moving through Belgian streets. Delivery vans, she said, no longer draw attention even when a driver hands a small package to someone at an unfamiliar address, since the sight has become routine. She became Belgium's first national drug commissioner in 2023, a role created after Antwerp cemented its position as one of Europe's main entry points for cocaine. Her appointment followed a period of drug related violence that included threats against a former justice minister and a spate of attacks in Antwerp, among them the death of an eleven year old girl caught in a dispute between rival gangs. An anonymous investigative judge who spent months in a safe house later warned publicly that Belgium risked drifting toward becoming what she called a narco state, a phrase Van Wymersch herself had used earlier. Her strategy now centers on following the money rather than chasing every shipment. She has urged local authorities to look more closely at small businesses such as hairdressers, nail bars and night shops, which she says are increasingly used to launder proceeds instead of the large scale schemes criminal networks relied on in the past. Gangs, she added, now operate more like loosely connected contractors than fixed organizations, with different groups specializing in laundering, weapons or logistics and hiring each other as needed. Van Wymersch describes the shootings and explosions that make headlines as only the visible tip of the problem, with less visible harm, from drink driving deaths to domestic violence linked to drug use, sitting below the surface. --- Originally published by Belgium Crown. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://belgiumcrown.com/article/short-term-rental-apartments-are-being-used-as-drug-stash-houses-belgium-s-top-drug-official-says.