French and Belgian law-enforcement agencies conducted a joint operation on 11–12 June covering 23 kilometres of the A16 motorway and secondary roads linking De Panne (BE) to Tournai (BE) via Dunkerque (FR). According to the Belgian Federal Police communiqué, 312 vehicles were stopped and 489 individuals subjected to identity checks. The sweep resulted in 27 arrests for offences ranging from human-smuggling facilitation and stolen-vehicle trafficking to narcotics possession. The operation comes just days after the EU Migration Pact entered into force and illustrates how bilateral policing is being ramped up to disrupt criminal networks that exploit internal Schengen borders. Officers used mobile fingerprint scanners that feed into France’s AGDREF and Belgium’s National Register in real time, cutting verification times to under two minutes. For businesses relying on road freight between the Port of Dunkerque and logistics parks in West Flanders, the increased roadside controls translated into average delays of 25 minutes during the overnight window. Logistics associations welcomed the action, arguing that curbing cargo theft ultimately improves supply-chain security. Companies operating employee shuttles or cross-border project teams should brief drivers on documentation requirements—original vehicle registration, employment attestation and, for third-country nationals, residence permits—to avoid secondary inspection delays.
Source: Belgian Federal Police
