Belgian Customs, military team up to monitor "suspicious" private flights

Описание: Belgian Customs aims to maintain a closer watch on private aircraft. From now on, they will be using Defense radar to keep track of suspicious private jets used for criminal activities.

Smugglers know this. Private aircraft are subject to little or no control. As a result, they are increasingly used by criminals to transport drugs, weapons, cash or illicit products subject to excise duty.

These flights offer many advantages to traffickers. Controls are infrequent or non-existent at some small airports and heliports. Belgium, for example, has 150 airfields and heliports where private planes can land with complete discretion.

Other advantages: the itinerary can be unknown to the authorities or modified, the interval between landing and take-off can be very short, and the transponders (the tool used to geolocate the aircraft) can be easily deactivated, enabling the plane to pass completely unnoticed.

To monitor the suspicious private aircraft better, a customs officer will now be seconded to the national airspace security center. The use of Defense radars will enable all flights to be tracked, even if their transponders are deactivated. "The aim of the collaboration is to use all the information gathered to target and identify suspicious flights. This will then enable us to send a team, a brigade, to an airport where, until now, we haven't carried out any checks", explains Kristian Venderwaeren, General Administrator of Customs and Excise.

As a result, controls on private aviation are set to intensify. Last year, barely 30 offences were recorded on private aircraft passing through Belgium.
SHOTLIST
DATE SHOT: 26-May-2025

VS Private aircraft landing, and being checked by customs officials and sniffer dogs

SOUNDBITE (French) Fabrice Mayné, Customs tax expert: "It's common to see them land here, yes. And control them normally too. Now, it's true that we can't control 100% of the planes that go by."
(French: "Il est fréquent de les voir atterrir, ici, oui. Et de les contrôler normalement également. Maintenant, il est vrai qu'on ne peut pas contrôler 100 % des avions qui passent.")

Gfx Airports in Belgium

SOUNDBITE (French) Kristian Vanderwaeren, General Administrator of Customs and Excise (partially overlaid with shots): "There are thousands and thousands of flights in Belgium. Customs concentrated all its efforts and controls on the six most important airports, but the other 150 were really a blind spot for us."
(French: "Il y a des milliers et des milliers de vols qui se passent en Belgique. La douane concentrait tous ses efforts, ses contrôles sur les 6 aéroports les plus importants, mais les 150 autres, c'était vraiment un blind spot pour nous.)


(IMAGES FROM 11 October 2023 taken in Ostende from our /#Investigation 0'45 to 1'19)

SOUNDBITE (English) hostess at Ostend airport: (audio mixed) "There's no scanning for luggage, suitcases are put directly into our van, we go through the doors, get to the plane, put everything inside and we're done."
(French:"Il n'y a pas de scan pour les bagages, les valises sont directement mises dans notre van, on passe les portes, on va jusqu'à l'avion, on met tout à l'intérieur et c'est terminé")

VS Airport and planes

DATE SHOT: 26-May-2025

SOUNDBITE (French) Jan Jambon, Federal Minister of Finance (NV-A): "The primary defense radars, they can still track these flights. So what we're going to do is the defense control center. Put a customs officer there. If we see a flight being diverted. We can alert local teams to check this type of aircraft."
French: "les radars primaires de la défense, ils peuvent encore suivre ces vols. Et donc ce qu'on va faire, c'est le centre de contrôle de défense. Mettre un douanier là-bas. Si on voit la déviation d'un vol. On peut un peu alarmer des équipes locales pour faire le contrôle sur ce type d'avion.

VS Plane taxiing in and customs officials approaching