Friday, March 29, 2024
Industry update

Dutch Customs are increasingly using drones to combat drug smuggling

Dutch Customs are increasingly using drones to monitor port areas and coastal regions. This not only concerns surveillance to combat drug smuggling, but also to provide aerial assistance during arrests. At the moment, the drones are mainly used in the port area of ​​Rotterdam, but in the future this will also happen more often nationally.

Customs Drone Team

Dutch Customs increasingly face challenges such as drug smuggling and other crime. However, it is difficult to monitor the vast container terminals, port areas and industrial estates in the coastal regions. The port of Rotterdam alone covers an area of ​​12,600 hectares. Fixed cameras only cover a small part of these areas.

For this reason, Dutch Customs are increasingly using drones. A Customs Drone Team has even been set up. The idea for this arose about four years ago. The Dutch Customs Management Team soon gave the green light. The cart was led by Darko Brodic, member of the Customs Innovation Coordination Group, Robotization section. Brodic is now co-leading the drone team.

There was a lot to consider when setting up the drone team. Brodic: “This required a multidisciplinary approach, because you have to take a lot of steps from design phase to implementation. For example, you have to select and train pilots, go through a tender process for the drones, draw up your own operational manual… And coordinate a lot with the Human Environment & Transport Inspectorate, because as an aviation operator you will be in the airspace and therefore have to comply with all kinds of rules. You even have to set up an aviation organization for that. Fortunately, many people from inside and outside the organization have helped with this.”

Drone with infrared camera

The team uses the latest drones, including the DJI M300 RTK. It can be used both in daylight and in the dark, thanks to the Zenmuse H20T thermal camera. The drone is also equipped with an LED floodlight to illuminate an area on the ground at night.

Brodic: “We can observe very well both at night and during the day, and we see – as expected – more than before. Thanks to the good zoom function, we are also able to take razor-sharp images from a great distance. Also important: you are far away, so as good as invisible. That’s not only useful when you’re on surveillance, but just as good when you’re doing reconnaissance work, for example. After all, our team is also sometimes deployed in the event of an arrest by our colleagues from the Special Assistance Team.”

A DJI M300 RTK with LED floodlight and camera

Deployed daily

The drone team now uses the drones almost every day. Aerial surveillance is especially effective in the fight against so-called drugs gatherers, people who remove drugs from containers. In the future, it is also conceivable that drug transports at sea will be tracked by drone, or for the purpose of tracking suspicious goods over land.

All recordings are processed in accordance with the privacy legislation (GDPR). “Everything that is ‘compliant’ is removed again, recordings showing suspicious cases or a ‘red act’ are kept for possible evidence,” explains Brodic. “If by any chance faces or silhouettes of bystanders are captured, they are blurred or otherwise made unrecognizable. The rights and privacy of citizens are thus guaranteed.”

Expansion

Within Customs Rotterdam Port, even more employees are being trained as pilots, while colleagues in each of the other maritime regions – Groningen, Amsterdam and Breda – will also receive their license. “We are also busy forming drone teams there,” says Darko. “And we are thinking about setting up these units all over the country. After all, the bird’s eye view can be of added value for customs work everywhere.”

Dutch Customs are not the only organization that are working on drones for surveillance. The Port of Rotterdam Authority are also interested in the possibility of monitoring the port area from the air. At the end of 2021, a series of experiments were conducted with an Avy fixed-wing drone, which can cover greater distances at high speed. In the future, these will be stationed in drone boxes that can be controlled remotely.

(sources: Dronewatch NL, Customs inZicht, Rijnmond – cover photo: Dutch Customs)

Wiebe de Jager

Wiebe de Jager is the founder of Dronewatch (available in Dutch and English). Wiebe is an experienced drone pilot (EASA Specific category certified) and has published a number of bestselling books about drone photography and cinematography.

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