Belgian Customs will start using military radar systems to monitor private aircraft more closely in a bid to combat smuggling, officials have said.
The move comes as authorities acknowledge that smugglers are taking advantage of limited oversight at small airports and heliports across the country.
Private planes are often used to transport drugs, weapons, cash and illicit goods with little to no scrutiny.
Belgium has around 150 airfields and heliports, many of which allow private aircraft to land and depart without formal customs checks.
Officials say this lack of surveillance has made them a magnet for trafficking operations.
"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," said Kristian Vanderwaeren, the General Administrator of Belgian Customs.
Private aircraft offer further advantages to criminals, including flexible routes, rapid turnaround times on the ground and the ability to switch off transponders – devices that allow aircraft to be tracked – making them invisible to standard monitoring systems.
To improve monitoring, a customs officer will now be seconded to Belgium's national airspace security centre.
From there, they will use radar data provided by the Ministry of Defence to identify and flag suspicious flights – even those with disabled transponders.
"This will then enable us to send a team, a brigade, to an airport where, until now, we haven’t carried out any checks," explained Vanderwaeren.
Authorities recorded only about 30 smuggling-related offences involving private aircraft in Belgium last year. But with stepped-up surveillance, officials expect detections to rise.
