burglary

A shedding cat may have been the downfall of three men suspected of a burglary in Muiderberg. The three suspects deny having anything to do with the break-in, but their shoes were covered in cat hair. The house that was burgled is home to a cat that sheds a lot, NH Nieuws reports after a tweet from a community police officer.

The resident came home to find her home broken into and the suspects running away. The police gave chase, and finally caught and arrested the trio in Amersfoort.

Jewelry thieves made off with 1.3 million euros of luxury watches in a brazen smash-and-grab robbery in the center of Maastricht Wednesday night. Two burglars made off with 150 watches from the Juwelier Burger on Platielstraat, and were apparently at large.

A video was posted on Facebook claiming to show the end of the burglary. Two people are scene climbing down a ladder at the scene of the crime, and then fleeing on bicycles.

Amstelveen is setting up an "expertise team" consisting of former police officers to reduce the number of burglaries in the city. The municipality is currently recruiting four former police officers to be part of this team. "It is time for unorthodox measures", the municipality said, NOS reports.

The number of registered crimes in the Netherlands decreased again last year and is now back at the level of 1980, Statistics Netherlands reported on Monday. Crime in the Netherlands increased steadily at the start of this century, but decreased considerably over the past few years. Last year 49 crimes were registered per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to 93 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2001 and 2002, NOS reports.

Burglars broke into a Rabobank branch in Oudenbosch and stole valuable belongings from several safety deposit boxes. The burglary happened sometime over the weekend and was discovered on Tuesday, according to NOS.

Exactly how many safety deposit boxes were robbed is unclear. The police speak of "a large number". An investigation is underway and the police are calling on witnesses to come forward.

The Amsterdam mayor, police and Public Prosecutor are concerned about a seeming shift towards more invisible forms of crime in the Dutch the capital, they said in a report on Monday. With "invisible" crimes they refer to actions that are criminal in nature, but are socially embedded in neighborhoods and often out of the control and sight of the government, ANP reports.

A large proportion of this invisible crime has to do with conflicts in the drug world, according to the Amsterdam triangle. These crimes lead to arms trade, money laundering and assassinations.

On Saturday 16-year-old Nina Nootenboom caught a burglar in her Enschede home and managed to hold him down until the police arrived to arrest him. The police call the girl a hero, but add the caution that it is unwise to confront a burglar yourself.

Nina, her father and her older sister Julia (18) came home on Saturday to find their living room had been ransacked. As they were gone only a short time, Nina quickly realized that the thief could not be far away. "I acted in a reflex", Nina said to newspaper AD. 

For the first time in years, the number of burglaries in the Netherlands increased in 2016. Last year a total of 64 thousand burglary claims were filed with insurers, compared to 61 thousand in 2015, according to figures from the Dutch association of insurers VNV, ANP reports.

Saleh A., a 29-year-old man who broke the windows of kosher restaurant Ha Carmel in Amsterdam while carrying a Palestinian flag on December 7th, apologizes to the owner of the restaurant and the Dutch people, his lawyer said in court on Wednesday. He attacked the restaurant out of anger about the situation in Israel, the man told the court, the Telegraaf  reports.

Amine A., a 29-year-old police officer in The Hague, was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday. He was convicted of bribery, participation in a criminal organization and attempted burglary. The court also banned A. form working as an official for nine years, NOS reports.

A 101-year-old woman was robbed in her Utrecht home by a beggar who followed her home from the store on Wednesday morning. And in Best a 91-year-old woman was injured by a burglar who came into her home while she was sleeping early that same morning.