Taking money away from criminals did not yield much last year, partly because the recovery of criminal money is very difficult. Het Openbaar Ministerie (OM/The Public Prosecution Service) therefore opts for a new strategy and wants to put more energy into tracking suspicious money flows and tracing criminals. During an interview with the NOS and on Radio 1, criminologist Dr Karin van Wingerde spoke about why taking criminal money is so difficult.
What makes it so difficult, according to Van Wingerde, is that "that money is not always in the Netherlands. Criminal money is often channelled via specially established bv structures with many intermediate links in different countries. This means that the detection and the final removal of the money are above all very labour-intensive. "
Van Wingerde says it’s a good development that more attention is paid to this issue: "But we are not there yet. We know from previous research that the cooperation between different services can be improved: "There are few integral removal teams in the Netherlands where the police co-operate with the judiciary and the tax authorities. That could be organized much better. "
In addition, she states that international improvements can be made: "The Netherlands is struggling to work with other countries to get information here if the money is abroad."
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Dr Van Wingerde received her PhD in 2012 at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research focuses on white collar and organizational crime and the regulation and enforcement thereof. Since 2014, Karin is PhD student coordinator of the Erasmus Graduate School of Law. Karin is a member of the editorial boards of Tijdschrift voor Toezicht, Tijdschrift voor Criminologie and the Journal of White Collar and Corporate Crime. Since 2016 she has been involved as a research partner with the Gaming Authority.
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