The Belgian authorities have been put on alert following a warning received last Monday night about a car with explosives on board a ship bound for the port of Antwerp.
The vehicle was due to explode on arrival, according to the warning.
According to Belgian media, the ship in question was the Liberian-flagged MSC Bha-vya V. It is anchored in the North Sea, near Alkmaar (Netherlands). It is not currently authorized to proceed to Antwerp.
A connection with a drug case cannot be ruled out.
The vessel left Turkey on 9 December for the port of Antwerp, where it was due to arrive in the afternoon. According to the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, it docked in Hamburg (Germany), Le Havre (France), and Sines (Portugal) in turn.
According to the same source, a similar incident occurred last year, when a bomb warning was issued on a Senegalese-flagged ship, on which a large quantity of cocaine was subsequently found. The threat turned out to be part of a dispute between rival drug gangs.