News item | 25-05-2022 | 4:00 pm
With a change of course, the Multidisciplinary Intervention Team (MIT) continues in the fight against organized crime under the name National Cooperation against Subversive Crime (NSOC). The cooperation between the police, the Public Prosecution Service, Customs, the Tax and Customs Administration, the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee and other parts of the Ministry of Defense is necessary for sharing information and devising new methods to combat criminal structures. and disrupt their business models. That will be the core task of the renewed partnership. The operational strength and capacity to catch criminals and to roll up their networks with accomplices lies with the services themselves.
Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security explains in a letter to the House of Representatives today that she has come to the decision for a change of course after consultation with people from the workplace as well as from the management of the collaborating services at MIT, scientists and other professionals who are or have been involved in the partnership. These consultations showed that there is a lot of consensus about the need for cooperation to be able to share information for a more effective approach to organized and subversive crime. Together, the services have a much better idea of criminal phenomena and underlying structures than they can gain on the basis of their own information alone. At the same time, there was also criticism because in the structure of the MIT there was discussion and lack of clarity about the management of interventions and the operational effectiveness of the parent organizations involved.
Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius: ‘We keep the building blocks of MIT for information sharing, because together the organizations gain insight that they do not have alone. But with a change of direction. Organized crime has gained too much ground in recent decades. Crime abuses our open society and good economic infrastructure and constantly adapts to new situations. We need to understand criminal networks smarter and faster and break through them with new methods. The cooperation within the NSOC must have a clear added value in this, so that the Netherlands becomes less attractive for organized crime.’
New focus in NSOC
The collaborating partners will start working as NSOC from 1 July 2022 with a new focus. The assignment is to accelerate the development of new methods to expose and untangle the (financial) interconnectedness of the underworld and the upper world. The new focus will be on tackling criminal money flows and the underlying business structures, such as money laundering through trade flows and financial service providers that help criminals in businesses, corruption and violence. We are also looking specifically at logistics service providers for criminals, since our good infrastructure with the large transport sector, airports and seaports is unfortunately also being misused for illegal business.
After a period of 18 months, the newly implemented working method is evaluated and assessed for results and the added value of the partnership. The task for the NSOC is to develop intervention options that are different and innovative compared to what the parent organizations themselves are already doing. With the information shared within the NSOC, operational services of the parent organizations can make further progress in the fight against organized crime.
It has been agreed that for the period of 18 months a substantial part of the intervention capacity will not come into the partnership, but will be made available from the parent organizations when necessary. The intervention capacity in the partnership is for the development and implementation of alternative interventions that do not belong to the task of one of the parent organizations. How much capacity and associated funding will be transferred to the NSOC and how much to the parent organizations will become clear in the coming weeks in consultation with all parties involved and between the Ministries of Justice and Security, Finance and Defence.