National Threat Assessment 2008. Organised Crime - Politie

350 new vehicles and a huge total financial loss. According to information
from the National Vehicle Crime Information Centre (LIV), it is mainly groups
from caravan camp circles in the border region between the Netherlands and
Germany that operate in this manner. The cars are transported by road.
The activities of criminal caravan camp residents as regards ringing stolen cars
are well known, but according to experts they are also involved in the export
of stolen cars. For example, the police came across a gang from Utrecht that
consisted of a family of criminal caravan camp residents. The father was in
Ghana and was involved in the trade in stolen cars in Africa. In another case
there was a criminal organisation from caravan camp circles in South Limburg
that was involved in large-scale cannabis growing and the export of expensive
stolen cars via Rotterdam and Antwerp to Dubai. The cars were supplied
by groups of thieves from the Netherlands and the UK. It was determined
in late 2005 that the organisation had in fact been active since 1998.
According to information from 2004, criminal caravan camp residents were
also guilty of homejacking. In addition to car theft combined with domestic
burglaries in which violence was used against the residents in some cases,
this group was also involved in the theft of excavators.
Domestic burglaries
In a regional analysis of domestic burglaries it was concluded that there were
no permanent groups that worked together for prolonged periods of time.
(Domestic) burglaries and thefts on an ad-hoc basis where the membership of
the group varies are a much more frequent phenomenon. The regional analysis
showed that the common factor between the people involved was their origins,
because many of them came from caravan camp circles, as a result of which
they knew each other and maintained contact.
Synthetic drugs
According to DNR’s crime pattern analysis Synthetische drugs, the synthetic
drugs producer community in the Netherlands is small and concentrated in
the south of the country. The producer community probably consists of a
few hundred people. Within this community, several dozen criminals produce
synthetic drugs systematically and on a large scale. Most of them have their
roots in caravan camp circles. They are usually born and bred in a caravan camp,
which is also the basis for their social network. These criminals are usually not
involved in the primary processes themselves; they are often the financiers or
organisers of the whole operation. They are mainly involved in obtaining
shipments of precursors and the international sale of the final product.
Criminal caravan camp residents are also linked to the dumping of chemical
waste. They allegedly receive the waste from synthetic drugs laboratories
chapter 6 – alerts
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