Mandatory national purchase register to tackle the handling of stolen goods
The handling of stolen goods (the purchase, ownership or sale of stolen goods) can only take place if crimes are committed. Items are stolen through the commission of burglaries, robberies or muggings, for example. This has a tremendous impact on the victims and must be dealt with firmly. This is why the requirements for all buyers and dealers will now include entering previously owned goods and the names of the individuals selling them into the Digital Buyers Register. Today, Ferdinand Grapperhaus, the Minister of Justice and Security will be submitting a legislative proposal to this effect for online consultation.
Buyers and dealers of used goods and odd lots have been required to keep a purchase register since 1886. In 2011, the Digital Buyers Register (DOR: Digitaal Opkopersregister) was developed. Some of the municipalities now require buyers and dealers to enter any goods they acquire into this register. The rest of the municipalities do not require this, however. There, buyers and dealers still register their goods in a paper register. The same applies to the Digital Buyers Service Desk (DOL: Digitaal Opkopersloket); buyers and dealers have to report to the municipality where they operate their business or practise their profession. In certain municipalities, this can be done via a digital service desk, whilst in others, it is necessary to go to a physical service point. Minister Grapperhaus’ legislative proposal seeks to require the use of the DOL and DOR for all municipalities and all buyers and dealers nationwide.
Proper digital registers make it easier for the police to track down criminals and return stolen goods to their rightful owners. This is due to the fact that the DOR is linked to the Stop Heling (Stop the handling of stolen goods) database. Any goods which have been reported stolen to the police or the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee are registered in this database. As soon as a stolen product is purchased and entered into the DOR, it matches with the item registered in Stop Heling and the police is notified automatically. With the Stop Heling website and app, anyone can check whether a particular item offered via the internet, social media or a buyer is registered as stolen, prior to purchasing it. Needless to say, the paper registers still used by some municipalities are not linked to Stop Heling. As a result, the police are unable to automatically compare the goods registered in Stop Heling with the goods entered into the paper registers by buyers and dealers, which means that if an item is a stolen one, it will not produce a hit, and the police will not take action. The local differences also mean that receivers of stolen goods and thieves who wish to sell these go to municipalities where the DOR is not mandatory.
The proposed legislation would not only improve the odds of catching the receivers of stolen goods and perpetrators of property offences, but would also limit the market for stolen goods. It also represents an important tool in the fight against organised crime and subversion, since the DOR also gives the police insight into mobile gangs who offer their stolen goods to buyers spread across the country. Furthermore, daily on-the-spot monitoring of compliance with the registration requirement has brought cases to light in which buyers and dealers were not only found to be guilty of purchasing stolen items, but also of acting as a facilitator in organised crime, such as drug trafficking, possession of weapons and human trafficking. Measures to tackle the handling of stolen goods are therefore being included in the anti-subversion strategies employed by several municipalities.