February 26, 2012
Last Friday a man in Nijmegen drew the attention of the local constabulary because he failed to reach the pedals of the bicycle he was riding on the Hazenkampseweg.
A quick check of the frame number by the police officers who had been driving in an unmarked car that the bike had been stolen on January 13 from the Dukenberg shopping centre. The 21-year-old man was apprehended on suspicion of theft and handling stolen goods.
The bicycle will be returned to its owner.
(Link: politie.nl)
Tags: bicycle theft, crime, criminals, Nijmegen
September 16, 2011
A 22-year-old man from The Hague was arrested today at a pizza place on the Laan van Meerdervoort when he tried to pay with stolen coupons.
The owner called the cops because the coupons had not been published yet. In fact, they had just been printed, and had been stolen earlier that same day from a car in the Torenstraat.
While in gaol, the suspect will have plenty of time to listen to André van Duin’s song Pizza: “Wait a bit … a little longer … a little longer … even longer … pizza!”
(Link: Police Haaglanden region. Photo by Uggboy, some rights reserved)
June 13, 2011
A while back we reported about a mistake the Dutch unemployement insurer UWV made in which 3,000 formerly unemployed entrepreneurs had—often accidentally—committed fraud during a UWV led worker reintegration program after having been given some incorrect advice. It was the UWV who then made sure these misinformed people were fined, and in some cases, criminally prosecuted.
After a scorching indictment by the Dutch ombudsman in 2010, a parliamentary committee led by Ruud Vreeman collected 2,000 complaints, approximately half of which were by people who had been misled by UWV and who should get their money back. UWV will pay out about 5.2 million euro to its victims, Volkskrant reports.
UWV has instated its own appeal committee for the remaining thousand complainants led by law professor Irene Asscher-Vonk, who has already concluded that “a significant number” of the appellants have also been unjustly accused. Apparently the Vreeman committee never looked at all the complaints in detail, something Asscher-Vonk wants to rectify:
Asscher-Vonk does not just want to do justice to the unjustly suspected entrepreneurs, she also thinks it is important that UWV not be portrayed as a bunch of crooks. It must answer to suspicions of benefits misuse. “Mistakes have been made, but mistakes are made everywhere. UWV is an important and indispensable institution, and the reparation of trust is important.”
Interestingly, UWV pays on average 5,000 euro back per victim, but originally fined them 15,000 euro on average. That means either UWV will not pay back everything, or the real fraud in that pool of 3,000 entrepreneurs has been taking the insurer for much more than fifteen grand a pop.
(Photo of Atelier van Lieshout’s “Food Cart” by me—part of the Art Zuid set)
Tags: benefits, crime, criminals, fraud, Ruud Vreeman, unemployment, unemployment benefits, UWV, work
April 17, 2010
A 18-year-old man from The Hague staged a robbery two weeks ago in order to impress his ex-girlfriend with his heroic intervention and win her back that way.
A friend in a white ski mask pulled a knife on the 17-year-old girl on the Grote Markt and demanded her purse, only to see his ‘robbery’ thwarted by the ex-boyfriend who ‘happened’ to be on the scene. After studying security camera footage (the girl reported the attempted robbery to the police), the police concluded the ‘robber’ and the ex-boyfriend were in cahoots.
Both conspirators were arrested.
According to De Volkskrant, the ploy did not have the desired effect.
Tags: balaclavas, crime, criminals, Den Haag
April 4, 2010
A particularly dumb thief from The Hague was caught twice on the same day last Tuesday for stealing police bait bikes.
When the 35-year-old was released after the first arrest, he walked along the spot in the Wagenaarstraat in The Hague where his first crime had taken place, and, presumably to his great joy, discovered another bicycle just ready for the taking. This bike again turned out to be a bait bicycle.
Telegraaf doesn’t say if they also released the man after his second arrest.
January 8, 2010
“One of the Netherlands’ eight most wanted criminals has turned out to be in jail in Belgium since 2008. To the embarrassment of the Dutch justice authorities, the fact that man is serving a 10-year sentence there only became known after they had released their ‘most wanted’ list.”
Seven more to go!
A few days ago, there was a whole discussion about whether publishing the list was a good idea, the pros, the cons (darn those puns) and the usual round table discussion that fuels evening television in the Netherlands. The irony was that releasing a list of eight heavy duty criminals was a first and the goal was to let the public help.
I can picture it now. After not having received any info in 2007 from Belgium on the whereabouts of this bad man once he was off the Dutch radar, some employee checked off the box ‘AWOL’ or something and that was that. Somehow, the bad man landed in jail in Belgium and no information was given on that and the box ‘AWOL’ remained checked. Don’t you just love this European Union thing sometimes.
(Link: rnw.nl, Photo of Schie prison by Miek37, some rights reserved)
