The national crime hotline Meld Misdaad Anoniem received a record 15,000 tip-offs last year and helped solve 1,031 crimes, the organisation said on Thursday.

In particular, there was a 29% rise in tip-offs about muggings and a 22% increase in reports about armed robberies. In total, the hotline received 805 tips about robberies.

‘If you compare that to the 1,982 armed robberies which took place last year, you could say we are phoned about one in three of them,’ hotline spokesman Guus Wesselink said.