New NASC partnership in fight against organised crime
In a change of course, the Multidisciplinary Intervention Team (MIT) will continue in the fight against organised crime under the name National Alliance against Subversive Crime (NASC). Collaboration 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 units of the Ministry of Defence is necessary in order to share information and develop new methods to disrupt criminal structures and their earning models. This is the core task of the new partnership. The operational capability and capacity to catch criminals and round up their networks with accomplices will lie with the services themselves.
Minister of Justice and Security Yeşilgöz-Zegerius explained in a letter to the Lower House of Parliament today that she came to the decision on a change of course after meeting with both staff and management from the collaborating services in the MIT, researchers and other professionals currently or previously involved in the partnership. These meetings revealed a great deal of consensus regarding the need for collaboration to be able to share information for a more effective approach to organised and subversive crime. Together, the services have much more insight into criminal phenomena and underlying structures than they could gain based on their own information alone. At the same time, there was also criticism due to discussions and a lack of clarity within the structure of the MIT regarding management of interventions and the operational capability of relevant parent organisations.
Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius: ‘We will maintain the MIT’s building blocks for information sharing, because together, the organisations can gain insight that they do not have on their own. There will be a change of course, however. Organised 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 a smarter and faster approach to understand criminal networks and dismantle them with new methods. The collaboration within the NASC aims to bring clear added value in this regard, so that the Netherlands will be less attractive for organised crime.’
New focus in NASC
The collaborating partners will have a new focus when they start working as the NASC on 1 July 2022. The mission is to accelerate the development of new methods to expose and untangle the financial and other interconnectedness of the underworld and mainstream society. The new focus will be on tackling criminal money flows and the underlying business structures, such as money laundering practices via trade flows and financial service providers that help criminals in businesses, corruption and violence. In addition, the NASC will specifically look at logistics service providers for criminals, since our sound infrastructure with its large transport sector, airports and seaports is unfortunately also misused for illegal activities.
After a period of 18 months, the new method will be evaluated and assessed based on the results and the added value of the partnership. The NASC’s task is to develop intervention options that are different and innovative compared to what the parent organisations themselves are already doing. The information shared within the NASC will enable operational services of the parent organisations to make further progress in the fight against organised crime.
It has been agreed that, for the 18-month period, a substantial part of the intervention capacity will not be vested in the partnership, but will instead be made available from the parent organisations when necessary. The intervention capacity in the partnership is for the development and implementation of alternative interventions that fall outside the tasks of the parent organisations. How much capacity and corresponding funding will be transferred to the NASC and how much to the parent organisations will be determined in the weeks ahead, in consultation with all parties involved and between the Ministries of Justice and Security, Finance and Defence.