Dutch intelligence services easily recruiting spies due to tensions with Russia, China

The increasingly grim relations with Russia and China are making it easier for the Dutch intelligence services to recruit new spies - even despite the staff shortages in the labor market, De Telegraaf reports.

IT specialists are in high demand throughout the Netherlands. But over the past months, general intelligence service AIVD and military intelligence service MIVD received more applications from this field for their masterclass than they could allow.

“In the past few months, the importance of national security has become very painfully clear,” Simone Smit, deputy director of the AIVD, said at the Summer School the services are holding to recruit young cyber talent.

“We are looking for ordinary people with special skills who deliver exceptional performances for us,” said Sebastian Reyn, deputy head of the MIVD. “The digital threat posed by Russia and China is very extensive and growing. The conflicts of interest with those countries have intensified.”