Cyber-smugglers get security codes, hide drugs, exit port with boxes

THE EU criminal intelligence body, Europol, has revealed that drug smugglers have hacked into IT systems, pinpointing the locations of containers, then concealing contraband within them before releasing the box to illicit truckers.

A number of raids have been carried out this year in the Netherlands and Belgium related to an international drug smuggling ring at the Port of Antwerp, according to UK's Transport Intelligence.

Europol, an unarmed Hague-based agency with no powers of arrest, said smugglers were able to identify the location of certain containers in which their consignments were concealed.

Containers came from bona fide shippers, but before consignees could collect their goods, the gang sent its own drivers armed with the necessary security codes from the hacked computers to get the box out of the port.

In one case, when the smugglers were unable to get the container before rightful customer did, they tracked it and then hijacked it.