The team that would tackle the serious crime after the murder of Derk Wiersum should not only slim down, but also get a different name. It will be called National Cooperation against Subversive Crime (NSOC). The new team, for which a director is also being sought, will be given eighteen months by the minister to prove itself.
‘No concrete results’
According to Yesilgöz, MIT has not achieved concrete results in recent years and has spent too long building the organization. As a result, there was insufficient added value compared to other investigative services.
“There was too much talk about structures and the like. There were a number of critical voices in the field,” said the minister, who informed the House of Representatives about her special decision on Wednesday afternoon. She is referring, among other things, to the fierce criticism from a number of police services that MIT is said to cannibalize existing successful teams.
Never before in recent police history has a justice minister thoroughly transformed a multimillion-dollar investigative team before it even got underway.
tensions
MIT was a partnership of the police, the Public Prosecution Service, the Tax and Customs Administration, the FIOD, the Marechaussee and special departments of the Ministry of Defense, among others. It has been ‘in formation’ for two and a half years, but has not yet made any arrests or concrete investigations leading to criminal charges.
This led to tensions within, among others, the police and the Public Prosecution Service and trade unions. Existing detective teams such as the National Criminal Investigation Department and the National Prosecutor’s Office feared that too many resources and detectives would go to MIT without strengthening the fight against organized crime.
The team that would tackle the serious crime after the murder of lawyer Derk Wiersum should not only lose weight, but also get a different name.
ANP/HH
“Given the urgent situation in the Netherlands, it is necessary to switch to a model in which results are achieved,” writes Yesilgoz in the letter to the House, “so that the added value becomes clear. That also requires a focused operational focus of the collaboration.”
‘Gold in hands’
When asked, the minister adds to De Telegraaf: “We have gold in our hands with the partnership between various services. There is unanimity about that and nothing will change with the new team.”
The National Cooperation against Subversive Crime team will focus on money laundering, tackling fraudulent financial service providers and tackling corruption and violence. “There should be no duplication of activities by other teams,” said the minister.
She also wants to remove ‘intervention capacity’ from the new team. This means that the NSOC does not complete investigations independently, but does so in collaboration with existing investigative services.