"Biggest judicial scandal" in Netherlands: Detective held for selling information

A police officer assigned to the country’s national investigatory team was arrested last month in what authorities described as “the biggest judicial scandal” in decades. The policeman is suspected of selling confidential information related to investigations to drug trafficking rings and outlaw motorcycle gangs, the NRC reported on Friday. Additionally, prosecutors said they arrested one person suspected of obtaining secret information. “The man is held on suspicion of corruption, dereliction of duty, and laundering the money of criminals,” a representative of the Den Bosch prosecutor’s division told NRC. She described the matter as “quite sensitive” and said the arrest was kept quiet “in the interests of the investigation.” Sources told the newspaper that the investigator worked in the East Brabant police region, and that he held close ties to motorcycle gangs No Surrender and Satudarah. He was detained on September 29, and remanded into custody by a magistrate on October 2. There is a concern that the sale of information put lives of witnesses and undercover officers in danger, one source said. The computers owned by the detective were seized, and a large quantity of cash was taken from his house, the newspaper said. The prosecutor’s representative refused to confirm that detail. The National Detectives unit was having a hard time of late dealing with leaks from the department, the newspaper added. The policeman arrested had access to most major national criminal investigations, the paper alleges.