A life under the Spanish sun: it attracts many Dutch people – and criminal gangs are no exception. The Costa del Sol in particular is popular with Dutch criminals as a location and meeting place.
“Many Dutch people live in Spain. You see that Dutch criminals also meet and look up in Spain,” says Marc Janssen of Meld Misdaad Anonymous. “Due to the geographical location, the connections with South America and North Africa and the favorable climate, South Spain is increasingly being used as a criminal meeting place. That has an effect on both the Spanish and the Dutch community. Think of unfair competition for entrepreneurs, image damage and insecurity, because excessive violence is also not shifted.”
The region around Malaga and Marbella is also popular among Dutch criminals because of the sun and luxury lifestyle. But also because they can live fairly anonymously in the spacious neighborhoods (‘urbanizaciones’), there is good infrastructure in the form of airports and highways and they can flee quickly if there is a danger.
‘From bad to worse’
For the Spanish Justice, the criminal groups of Dutch people are a big problem – just like the violence they use. The Spanish prosecutor in Malaga, Fernando Bentabol, explained that to De Telegraaf before. “The level of violence among Dutch criminals is disturbing. It is a spiral: it goes from bad to worse. One person shoots the other, and then revenge follows. You see it between groups, but also between individuals. It makes sense that violence increases and further.”
BENBOL emphasizes that it is easy for criminals to wash their money white on the Costa del Sol. “There is a lot of opportunity to invest here. You buy a home with cash money, you sell it again and it is laundered. That is not only the case with houses, but also with luxury cars, for example.”
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Hanneke Ekelmans van Opsporing and Intelligence At the police force leadership hopes that Dutch people in Spain ‘they do not trust’, anonymously report. This may involve “any form of crime. But the Costa del Sol is often about drug -related crime – and then it is automatically also about money laundering.”
Signals of criminal capacity are, for example, large cash or unusual payments at a notary, car rental company, contractor or hospitality. “But you can also think of someone who suddenly has a lot of telephones with him, a house that suddenly hangs heavily in the cameras or meetings that you find strange.”
‘Telling story can give peace’
Anonymity remains guaranteed, Ekelmans emphasizes. “Sometimes people don’t go to the police so easily. The threshold can be lower if they know that their name is not known and their IP address cannot be traced. They can simply tell their story-and that can also give peace.”
“Often people want to share information about crime,” says Marc Janssen, “but there is something that stops them to do it. Sometimes a bit of fear plays a role. And sometimes it is also about people they know. In Spain it is no different. And here the language barrier can also stop people to go to the Spanish police.”
A lot of Dutch criminal money disappears in real estate, says Meike Willebrands, press officer of the Public Prosecution Service. “There is more than 150 real estate objects in Spain, both apartments and luxurious villas. They are mainly on the Costa del Sol, but also in the Alicante region, on the Balearic Islands and on the Costa Brava.”
Gang rolled up those luxury cars from the Netherlands, made several arrests in Spain
Two convicted drug criminals were arrested in April – a fugitive father and son from Steenbergen. In May, a Dutchman (38) was also arrested in Barcelona who would be part of a drug gang that had to see more than 44 million euros white.
Seven years ago, how valuable tips can be from the Dutch community could be when Jos Brech could be caught in the collar. He has since been convicted in the Nicky Verstappen case.