Cross-border policing to be improved

Minister for Security and Justice, Ivo Opstelten, is going to arrange swifter arrest actions over the border. At this time, a legal advice request to another country still has to be sent by post. Soon, this will be done via the internet. Minister Opstelten will decide this on Monday with his colleagues from Belgium and the German Noordrijn-Westfalen in Aken. Every year, between 4500 and 5000 legal advice requests are sent between the three countries in the Limburg border region. "If these legal advice requests don't have to go over the post and will be able to go digitally via well-secured lines, then detection services can take quicker action", a spokesperson for the minister said. This hasn't happened yet due to strict security demands on judicial information traffic. Such sensitive information must not be intercepted. In May, an experiment will be conducted, sending the legal advice requests between the Public Prosecution Services of the Netherlands and Noordrijn-Westfalen. According to minister Opstelten's spokesperson, the three countries will discuss several goals on monday, that have priority within the cooperation: motorcycle gangs, drugs criminality, human trafficking, and roving gangs that are often implicated in home invasions and car theft.