There is an unmanned shop along the road on the edge of Munnekeburen. The former water board building is full of vegetables, dairy, meat and groceries – everything the residents of the five village centers need. Seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., they can pay for their groceries themselves – with a calculator and PIN machine.
After the last shop in the five villages around Munnekeburen closed, farmer Titia van der Linde wanted to improve the quality of life. Each village center has a few hundred inhabitants, almost everyone knows each other. The self-payment system is going well, she says. “We rely on trust. And for the vast majority of people, that is right.” There is a camera inside, just to be sure. Sheep roam outside and three hundred dairy cows roam.
The egg carton reads in large letters: ‘Before you know it, crime will run rampant’
One of the products in the unmanned shop, boxes of ten eggs, points to a completely different new reality in the Frisian countryside: that is attractive to criminals. The egg carton reads in large letters: “Before you know it, crime will run rampant.” And in small letters: “How do you recognize crime in the countryside? Shielded doors or windows. Activities at unusual times. A chemical smell of anise, almond, acetone or ammonia. Excessive security with cameras.”
Titia van der Linde knows nothing about crime, she emphasizes, but she has recently started selling these egg cartons to help Platform Veilig Ondernemen. It tries to educate residents ‘in the countryside’ about the growing crime and undermining – especially in abandoned barns, vacant farms or farmers who, sometimes unknowingly, rent out a barn to criminals.
What started last year as an egg carton campaign by PVO Brabant and Zeeland (twenty thousand cartons sold) has now expanded to Limburg, Friesland, Drenthe and Groningen. PVO helps entrepreneurs protect themselves against crime and is funded by, among others, the Ministry of Justice.
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MDMA, crystal meth, speed and cocaine
In 2025, the police dismantled six drug labs in Friesland and another three at the beginning of this year, in small villages with names like Oudehaske and Hoornsterzwaag. The number of drug labs discovered across the country fell last year for the first time in four years from 167 in 2024 to 142according to the Center for Crime Prevention and Security, but in Friesland the number actually increased. From two to six.
The police have the impression that drug criminals are targeting them shift production capacity from the south to the north of the Netherlands, Hendrik van der Veen, sector head of the Friesland police district, recently told Omrop Fryslân. Synthetic drugs are made and processed in the labs, such as MDMA, crystal meth, speed and cocaine. The Netherlands is the main supplier to foreign countries.
It is not easy to recognize a drug lab, says Rini ten Grotenhuis, advisor to PVO Noord-Nederland. A house, farm or building where the curtains are always closed or opaque plastic hangs in front of the window, for example. Someone who wants to pay the rent for an empty shed with cash. Now that she has been intensively involved in crime prevention in the Northern Netherlands for four years, she can no longer drive around the countryside uninhibited. She looks different. “Drug labs are illegal – they pay no taxes, produce illegal substances and human life is worth little – but they are also simply dangerous.”
Prices of drugs on the street are not falling
Ten Grotenhuis first realized this four years ago when he opened a drug lab in the Frisian village of Haule exploded. “The body of the employee who worked in the lab was found in pieces in the meadow. Everyone in the area was shocked. Children often played in that yard.”
Who sits around rolling pills in empty barns in the countryside? “It can be individual actions by people from the region, but there is often organized crime behind it,” says Ten Grotenhuis. “With shrewd leaders who direct the organization from other parts of the world and who do not shy away from involving local employees in crime.”
The production of synthetic drugs is large in the Netherlands, says Ten Grotenhuis. “We know this because the price of drugs on the street does not drop when labs are closed down.”
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Willingness to report is low
Only 40 percent of the 142 labs dismantled in 2025 were found in rural areas. The rest in cities. There may be fewer in rural areas than in the city, says Femke van der Plas, but the willingness to report is also lower in rural areas, she says. She is a confidential advisor on ‘subversion and crime’ for farmers and gardeners in Brabant and Zeeland.
Of the 798 farmers who responded to a ZLTO survey about undermining, 90 percent said they would not report it if they saw a suspicious building. Why not? Van der Plas: “For fear of reprisals and for fear of making wrong accusations against someone.”
Sometimes they have been tricked somewhere and have already rented to a criminal. Then they are afraid of becoming complicit
Yet farmers regularly call Van der Plas. Usually anonymous. “If someone has approached them who they do not trust. For example with cash and the willingness to pay more than the asking price. I don’t write anything down but forward them to criminal intelligence. Sometimes they have already fallen for something, or been framed, and are already renting to a criminal. Then they are afraid of becoming accomplices.”
The people who call, says Van der Plas, generally do not want to end up in the police system. “The countryside is sparsely populated, so you almost have to report anonymously, otherwise everyone knows who you are. Sometimes they have strong suspicions of a drug network in the area and then I also forward them to the police.”
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