News item | 26-05-2026 | 08:51
Subversion affects the foundations of our society, is dormant and often invisible. This is the conclusion of the first Undermining Threat Assessment in the Netherlands (DON) drawn up by the Strategic Knowledge Center for Subversive Crime, part of the Ministry of Justice and Security.
Minister van Weel: ‘Subversion by organized crime is no longer about ‘the underworld’ that operates secretly: the ‘underworld’ no longer exists and is everywhere. In our prosperous society, organized crime sees opportunities to abuse well-designed infrastructures for criminal gain. We are taking tough action against this, and this threat assessment helps us determine direction.’
The DON concludes that the undermining effects on Dutch society threaten national security and outlines this in five threats:
- Social safety net through organized crime: criminal networks offer alternatives to social services that are insufficiently available, such as housing or physical protection, care or loans.
- The ripple effect in society of involvement in organized crime: people and organizations with valuable positions are attractive to criminal networks. For example, young people who are recruited at school for criminal jobs, municipal officials or entrepreneurs.
- Influencing decision-making and task performance through structural manipulation of criminal networks: when major interests of organized criminals come under pressure, they will try to bend and manipulate (local) authorities to their will. Decision-making and implementation can then consciously or unconsciously take criminals into account, for example to avoid violence or other problems.
- Illegal proceeds find their way into society: complex financial structures for moving money and money laundering are used to their maximum potential.
- Cumulative damage due to interconnectedness with state or ideological actors: states and ideological actors make use of the capabilities of criminal networks.
The threat assessment also shows that the current integrated approach to undermining already intervenes at the right points. But if the current approach is not vigorously pursued and intensified in certain areas, these threats will eventually become reality and could lead to social disruption.
A number of themes and activities will be taken up in the short term, such as increasing the resilience of young people against the call for quick money, strengthening the role of entrepreneurs to prevent rogue entrepreneurs and the revision of the law on special measures for metropolitan problems. Before the summer, a letter will also be sent to the House of Representatives detailing how the approach to corruption will be further developed. In the coming period, the government will work hard to develop the other recommendations into concrete measures.
