There are cities in our country with thousands of houses where no one is registered, but where people live. They are criminals who reside there anonymously, hidden from the authorities. Municipalities, police and estate agents are concerned.
Police actions have been set up in Rotterdam and Tilburg, among others, against criminals operating from residential areas. One place that stands out is Diemen, near Amsterdam. Especially Holland Park, a neighborhood with only rental properties of more than a thousand euros per month, is popular with criminals. At the end of September, a rogue housing broker was already arrested in raids. The police also arrested two Colombian criminals.
See how the police raided a home in this video:
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Police invade ‘ghost houses’ in Diemen
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Yesterday, the police held a new action in the neighborhood. Chief inspector Arno van Leeuwen: “We checked ten homes with the municipality where something seemed wrong. In doing so, we found again a number of criminals who had rented homes with false employer’s statements and were not registered with the population register in Diemen. So they were sitting here anonymously. “
Among the criminals arrested was an old acquaintance. “We had him arrested last year for the guns bill. He starred in a rap video holding an Uzi. Now he was in the house with an illegal South American prostitute.”
Mayor Erik Boog is very concerned about the ‘ghost houses’. “Holland Park is a new neighborhood where there is no social cohesion yet, people do not yet know each other well. And this makes the neighborhood vulnerable to undermining crime, to illegal rental. We have had to deal with human trafficking, illegal prostitution, drug production and drug trafficking. homes. Many different types of fraud, benefit fraud, benefits fraud. “
Criminals visit each other
Criminals are also using the illegal rental to stay under the radar, says Boog. “The danger is that other criminals will visit them, resulting in shelling and liquidations in the neighborhood.”
“And it is unfair. You see that so many people have to wait so long for a house. And those houses are now occupied by criminals. I just find that socially unacceptable.”
‘Government misses billions’
According to Detective Van Leeuwen, there are “a few thousand” homes in the Amsterdam region where criminals hide anonymously. According to George Rasker of the Aanjaagteam Ondermijning, the problem is present in all 355 municipalities. “There are houses everywhere where it is not known who lives there.”
He says that the government misses out 5.5 billion euros annually, partly because illegal residents do not pay taxes.
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Housing fraud occurs throughout the Netherlands, the NVM brokerage association also notes. “What we see is the tip of the iceberg”, says chairman Onno Hoes.
“When you see what happened in Diemen, what is happening in Rotterdam and other places, you wonder ‘is that really possible in the Netherlands?’ Well, in fact, it can happen next to anyone. It is shocking that undermining crime is getting so close to home. ”
Estate agent is gatekeeper
Mayor Boog has an idea about the approach to criminals. “We need to arrange nationwide that landlords can better screen their potential tenants so that they cannot use false papers to obtain rental contracts.”
Rasker also believes that the rental agents should be able to better fulfill their “role of gatekeeper”. “They say they need a better way to anonymously report suspicions of fraud.”
Boog then thinks of a national black list of criminal tenants and malicious housing brokers and better exchange of information between authorities. “For example, the tax authorities could provide information to ward off malicious tenants. Important steps have been taken in recent years to tackle undermining, but it must and can be even better.”
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