Justice and Security Inspectorate: undercover agents bear the brunt of favoritism and infighting

This is apparent from a study published on Tuesday by the Justice and Security Inspectorate. The investigation is aimed at the ‘Protected Operations’ department. In addition to the Working Under Deck (WOD) Team, where police infiltrators work to detect serious crime, this also includes the Witness Protection Team, which is responsible for the safety of, for example, key witnesses.

The Inspectorate has established that there are bottlenecks throughout the Protected Operations Department, which ‘may cause problems in the management of secret operations’. In the WOD team, the Inspectorate observes a ‘culmination of those bottlenecks’. And that’s serious. Because, the Inspectorate notes, the work of the Shielded Operations Department is ‘vital’ for the fight against serious crime.

Suicide

It is not the first investigation into abuses at this police unit. Oebele Brouwer’s highly critical report was published in November. That investigation was specifically about the WOD team of the police infiltrators. The reason for that investigation was the suicide of an undercover agent during an exceptionally long and intensive infiltration process. The police infiltrator was able to make the distinction between ‘himself and his cover role less and less’ and committed suicide while on the job in April 2021.

This study also showed that the supervision of undercover officers is inadequate, that too little attention is paid to their mental well-being and that more attention should be paid to the ethical aspects of the profession. According to the investigation committee, the suicide revealed ‘that the professionalism of the Working Under Dekmantel Team leaves much to be desired’. The fact that things often go well during infiltration processes is mainly due to ‘personal qualities of individual employees’ and not because of the police organisation, according to the Brouwer committee.

‘Deep wounds’

As far as police unions NPB and ACP are concerned, there is a ‘deep-rooted problem’ and this problem is broader than just the Shielded Operations Department. In recent years, several inspection reports have been published about the National Unit, which includes the Shielded Operations department. According to the unions, the problems have “inflicted deep wounds” on the staff.

‘It is a serious situation, with overdue maintenance at every level,’ says Jan Struijs on behalf of the NPB. ‘And while these people do indispensable and risky work, you can’t let such an organization go down like that.’

In recent years, he spoke to dozens of people about the problems at the National Unit. As far as police unions NPB and ACP are concerned, this police unit must be reorganized. For example, the unions argue in favor of clustering all investigative units of the National Unit – currently they are spread over various services. ‘As a result, the learning capacity will increase’, says Struijs. He also wants an ethics committee to be set up ‘to which people can always go with dilemmas and which will give solicited and unsolicited advice’.