National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

In early 2007 a Supervisory Committee was established for the National Threat
Assessment 2008 project. 5 The results of the preliminary study were discussed at
the first meeting of this Supervisory Committee in March 2007. The decision was
taken to start the following independent subprojects:
1. producing, trading in and smuggling cannabis;
2. crime relating to soil remediation projects and international waste streams;
3. fraud constructions;
4. organised crimes against property;
5. laundering of unlawfully obtained assets;
6. updating of threats from NTA 2004.
Cannabis
Cannabis as a subject was not addressed in NTA 2004. In NTA 2008 the first
subproject addressed the production of, trade in and smuggling of cannabis.
Environmental crime
The preliminary study produced a large number of subtopics for environmental
crime: 16 types of ‘grey’ environmental crime, six types of ‘green’ environmental
crime and illegal fireworks. The results of the preliminary study did not show a
clear selection of environmental subjects that required attention in NTA 2008.
There are a number of significant criteria for such a selection (organised nature,
assessment of the consequences for society) that are difficult to measure.
Environment as a subject area is too big, complex and impenetrable to analyse
completely in a brief preliminary study. Nevertheless, two subjects were nominated
as subprojects, namely soil remediation and waste processing. The first of these
subtopics was chosen mainly because of the estimated 600,000 locations in the
Netherlands where the soil is contaminated. It is expected that soil remediation is
needed at around 10% of these locations. The second subtopic was selected due
to the vulnerability of the waste processing chain to fraud and the unauthorised
addition of substances. A few major companies allegedly dominate the market
and are therefore able to direct the market and possibly monopolise it. On the
advice of the Supervisory Committee, the logistic vulnerabilities were studied.
Fraud
In the fraud subproject the emphasis was on fraud constructions, because they
can be used for several types of fraud and are therefore more flexible than fraud
types. The constructions involved are organisational or administrative in nature
and are set up with the aim of putting criminal intentions into practice and
concealing the true nature of those intentions.
5
See Appendix 1 for the composition of the Supervisory Committee.
18 National Threat Assessment 2008 – Organised crime