cash

Since May of this year, only 39 percent of transactions in the Netherlands were paid for with cash, compared to around 60 percent in 2014, according to new figures from Dutch central bank DNB and the Dutch Payments Association. DNB is concerned about the rapidly decreasing use of cash money. A cashless society is "vulnerable", DNB cash director Coen Voormeulen said to newspaper AD.

On Tuesday the police recovered seven valuable paintings that were stolen from a resident of Voerendaal. The paintings include works by Mondriaan, Mesdag, Tischbein and V. Kulagina, among others, and are worth hundreds of thousands of euros, the police said in a statement on Thursday. Three suspects were arrested.

On Friday interim Amsterdam mayor Jozias van Aartsen ordered that a home on De Klencke be locked down for three months following the discovery of large amounts of hard drugs in the home late in March, the Amsterdam municipality announced on Monday.

4.53 kilograms of MDMA, almost 40 thousand euros in cash, a sealing device, packaging materials and a gas gun were found in the home, NU.nl reports. 

On Thursday the police arrested two Amsterdam residents, age 28 and 30 years, after finding 50 thousand euros in cash in a hidden compartment in their car during a large traffic check on the A9. Three people from The Hague were also arrested when the police found an airsoft weapon, soft drugs and a large amount of cash in their car, Het Parool reports. 

On Wednesday afternoon a man lost 16 thousand euros on a train between Rotterdam and Amersfoort. He fell asleep on the train, woke up when he had to change trains at Amersfoort and forgot his bag full of cash on the train. "We are distraught", his friend Mariska Berendsen said to Hart van Nederland. The man himself wants to remain anonymous.

The man had the bag of money with him because he just sold his Audi in Rotterdam. "I told him it was not a good idea. I warned him all day", Mariska said. "Why the car was paid for in cash I do not know."

A number of masked men broke into a house on Veldenseweg and stole 120 thousand euros in cash as well as jewelry, according to one of the victims Mia Geerlings. The police only stated that jewelry was stolen and will say nothing more in the interest of an ongoing investigation, 1Limburg reports.

The police raided a total of 11 addresses in the northern parts of the Netherlands on Monday as part of a major investigation into cannabis cultivation and trafficking and money laundering. Three cannabis farms with a total of 3 thousand plants were discovered and dismantled.

The arrest of a man for riding a scooter without a helmet led the police to the discovery of 150 thousand euros in cash and over 45 kilograms of cocaine during the early hours of Saturday morning, the police said in a statement.

The Rotterdam police raided three homes in Rotterdam-Zuid on Tuesday in a narcotic investigation. Eleven people were arrested and firearms, drugs and cash were seized, the police announced.

Much of the Slotervaart Hospital's business was done "off the books", with nothing written down. The hospital is accused of making millions of euros in profits by producing and distributing heroin and concealing the revenues.

The police discovered 2.5 kilograms of heroin in a home on Pernisstraat, Zoetermeer on Friday. Two suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in drug trafficking.