€10 mil. to help businesses fight drug trafficking; "Peanuts", says Aboutaleb

The Cabinet is dedicating 10 million euros per year to help businesses fight undermining crime, Minister Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius of Justice and Security said. Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb of Rotterdam, who deals with large-scale drug trafficking through his city’s port, called the investment far from enough. “Peanuts,” he said to NOS. 

The extra money will go to the ten regional Platforms for Safe Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. The police, Public Prosecution Service (OM), sector organizations, and companies work together in these platforms to fight organized criminals trying to find their way into the upper world. This involves things like criminals looking for farm barns for drug labs or bribing dock workers to let drugs through. Yeşilgöz-Zegerius wants to make entrepreneurs more aware of and resilient against undermining crime.

Rotterdam mayor Aboutaleb thinks it is good that the Cabinet is paying more attention to undermining crime, but the promised 10 million euros per year is far from enough. “In Colombia alone, there are 215 billion euros in the mess. Then 10 million is a fantastically beautiful gesture, but it is not more than a gesture,” he said to NOS. 

Unorthodox measures are needed to fight undermining crime, Aboutaleb said. For example, he wants every container of tropical fruit entering the Port of Rotterdam to be checked for hidden drugs instead of random checks. “If we don’t, we have to accept that the cocaine will continue to flow over our feet for years to come.”

Minister Yeşilgöz-Zegerius still thinks that the 10 million euros per year investment will help. “We will never match money with what the criminals have. Never before has so much money been spent on combating. But it remains a fraction of what the criminals earn. So we have to be smart with our money,” she said to the broadcaster.