A police unit set up to track down criminals on the run has helped put more than 200 convicts behind bars.

FastNL (the acronym stands for Fugitive Active Search Team) was established at the start of last year to trace and apprehend convicts who have 10 months or more of their sentence to sit out.

The team’s work has led directly to the detention of 170 people, while another 32 have been arrested by other police teams or discovered during routine checks.

‘We are satisfied with the early results of FastNL’, a spokesman for the national police unit told AD. The team has also located 130 criminals who are hiding out abroad, including 48 in countries which have no extradition arrangements with the Netherlands.

The justice ministry is due to reveal on Monday the total number of criminals who are in the community when they should be in prison. In the Netherlands, people who have been sentenced to jail are sent a letter telling them when to report to jail and thousands never turn up.