Criminal profit with a value of 800,000 euros, plus another 200,000 in cash has been seized. Also count various cars, a boat and crypto currency that have been taken away and see there: the result of just four months of work by the special police team that has been working on undermining crime since April. Mayor Eric van Oosterhout van Emmen and Edwin Jongedijk, police chief Zuidoost-Drenthe, look back on these solid first results.
About a year and a half ago, all Drenthe municipalities, the province, the water boards and the police joined forces for a joint fight against undermining. That resulted in the Drenthe approach undermining. Since April 2025, a team within the unit in Southeast Drenthe has been fully devoted to undermining cases, in collaboration with the district investigation.
A necessary step, because according to Van Oosterhout, undermining is difficult to catch. Undermining often takes place outside of the picture: hemp cultivation, drug production, care fraud, human trafficking, illegal prostitution. “Regular crime such as burglaries is decreasing, but undermining is growing,” says Van Oosterhout. “Previously we thought: well, that will be more in the south of the country. But that’s how nobody thinks about it in the Netherlands anymore.”
This requires a different approach, with municipalities that are resilient and rules that are conclusive. Not only being strict in Emmen, but the same dikes are raising throughout Drenthe. “
The specially furnished police team in Southeast Drenthe looks back with satisfaction on the first four months. Jongedijk: “We have received more than 200 reports, visited more than fifty buildings, dismantled various hemp farms and rolled up a drug lab in Valthermond. The extra attention pays, so because we free hands for this form of crime, you immediately see that in the result.”
For example, where in the past a hemp farm found was often considered an isolated incident, there is now more attention for the organization that lies behind it, says Van Oosterhout: “It is not about that one woman with 30 plants in the Zolder. We look at the underlying system, which can also be called money laundering, human trafficking, human trafficking.”
And with this it helps that municipalities coordinate their regulations within the approach. The dikes are immediately raised everywhere, so that criminals can no longer go shopping between the meshes. “Because previously each municipality had its own rules.” Suppose we hunt a care party from a farm, then that at Valthermond, for example, popped up again. “For more than three -quarters, all the regulations are now drawn right within Drenthe.
An important profit from the approach is in the collaboration. Police and municipalities complement each other: the police receive the crooks and enter the hemp farms, while municipalities at the front are erect barriers with instruments such as the Bibob Act, an instrument that will be screened the financial trade and walk of an entrepreneur. “For example, we already have a hospitality entrepreneur who wanted to take over a business in Emmen. We kept it out, of which we suspected there was a criminal network behind it,” says Van Oosterhout.
Farmers are also actively approached and warned about the risks of rental of barns to rogue parties. Prevention is better than cure.
Jongedijk sees an interaction with residents: “The more often citizens see that reports lead to closures or actions, the more they are inclined to report again. That increases the confidence to keep doing that,” Jongedijk said.
Yet the approach does not go without bumps. Both police and municipalities are struggling with limited capacity. According to Van Oosterhout, choices must be made: “The police must be on visibility, for example present at smaller events. But then time is spent on that invisible work that really affects society,” he emphasizes
The first results vote positive, but the message from both gentlemen is clear: this is only the beginning. At the start, the province made a little more than five tons available for this approach at the start. According to Van Oosterhout, financing is almost round for the next two years. All parties involved will discuss the first evaluation later this week.
“The most important lesson,” Jongedijk concludes, “is that we can no longer let go of this.” The first success achieved is a double -edged sword, the team chef agrees. Because it also indicates that undermining crime is a serious problem in the region. And that requires a serious response. “You can’t relax now.”