In an extraordinary distraction from the heatwave sweeping Europe, Dutch police have urged holidaymakers travelling abroad this sweltering summer to keep their eyes peeled for hardened criminals on the run – and to report their whereabouts to a hotline back home.
Beside the arrivals and departures screens at Schiphol, Rotterdam and Eindhoven airports this week is a third set of new screens identifying eight of the country’s most wanted, who have been sentenced to anything from four years to life in jail for crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.
The police don’t make any comment on whether they could potentially be putting over-zealous holidaymakers at risk by encouraging them to emulate their favourite TV detectives by tracking gangsters down in the mean backstreets of Mallorca, Rome or Tangier.
No mention either of a reward for those who get their man or woman. All that’s on offer, it seems, is the quiet satisfaction of knowing they’ve singlehandedly done what the authorities themselves were unable to do.
Unleashing this brigade of citizen detectives overseas is the brainchild of the FASTNL unit of the national crime squad, whose brief is to track down fugitives who still have at least 300 days of their sentences to serve.
“Nobody can hide forever and there are no circumstances in which we simply give up on someone we’re chasing,” said police spokesman Andy Kraag.
On the other hand, he said, the situation becomes more complicated when criminals choose countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the Netherlands or where there’s a statute of limitations that prohibits Dutch police from acting.
“Our message is that fleeing abroad to hide in the sun is no longer the answer it seemed to be. Our reach is long,” said Mr Kraag.
In 2019, the Netherlands’ most wanted criminal, Ridouan Taghi, was detained in Dubai on international arrest warrants for murder and drug trafficking. The Netherlands and Dubai do not have an extradition treaty, but Taghi was deported to Schiphol three days later for entering Dubai on false papers.
In July 2021, after initial disagreement between Dutch and Spanish authorities, the Netherlands agreed to prosecute a group of young men from Amsterdam in connection with an incident in which a 27-year-old compatriot was kicked to death while they were on holiday together on Mallorca.
On Monday, a 40-year-old Dutchman was arrested in Marbella after an incident in which four people were shot, including a 32-year-old Irishman.
