National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

5.2.2 Corruption of public servants
Scope
Corruption of public servants is considered to be the misuse of public servant
powers to perform an act or omit that act for the benefit of a third party,
as a result of which personal gain is obtained in the form of financial or other
favours. In this NTA, the ‘third party’ mainly refers to representatives of criminal
organisations. The corrupt actions and omissions of the public servants involved
are aimed at benefiting the criminal organisations. Not all forms of public
servant corruption are discussed here: we will limit ourselves to corruption in the
police forces, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee and the Customs Service.
General context
Police
Newspaper articles sometimes give the idea that criminals with a large bag of
money go looking for potentially corruptible police officers, who are then bribed
to supply information or to put an investigation on the wrong track. The experts
interviewed have stated that this picture is fiction. Whilst criminals are always
interested in contacts that could supply them with relevant information, there
is no indication that criminals actively recruit such contacts, although they will
seize the opportunity if it occurs. However, this does not change the fact that
explicit attempts are made by organised criminal groups to recruit police officers
as sources of information. The amounts of money involved are usually relatively
small. Quite often the amounts for which people risk their careers are only a few
thousand euros. Nevertheless, they still do so because there are other interests
at stake, such as investing in friendship, family or love.
In many of the cases identified there has been an existing relationship that was
a (sometimes indirect) link to criminals. The pattern found in a large number
of cases is that someone is enticed into supplying relatively unimportant
information such as the name of the person who is the registered owner
of a particular vehicle. Slowly but surely, the criminal contact then increases his
grip on the supplier of information. The supplier may even end up participating
in criminal activities.
Apart from obtaining information from police officers (sometimes in return for
money), it is theoretically possible for criminals to have someone from their own
network infiltrate the investigating agencies with the aim of obtaining a position
with access to information or of otherwise sabotaging criminal investigations.
This will not occur more than incidentally, as infiltration is very time-consuming.
Criminal organisations have much more efficient ways of obtaining information.
It is not always guaranteed that a consideration will be provided in return for
information, and if a consideration is provided, it does not have to be provided
180 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime