Banks and other financial institutions made over 180,000 reports of suspicious financial transactions last year, double the 2022 total, according to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU-Nederland), the agency where all unusual payments are registered.

In total, the transactions concerned €25 billion, but it is unclear how many of the reports are justified. The agency has nearly 18,000 active case files and some 25% of the reports centred on one case file covering several years.

The agency says in particular it is concerned about the rise in trade-based money laundering in which gangs try to legitimise cash via existing companies via under and over-invoicing.

Sectors in which people are often paid in cash, such as construction, transport and package delivery are susceptible to this form of money laundering, the agency says.

“Work that our society partly runs on is paid for with criminal cash through these constructions,” the agency said. “This again shows the intertwining of the underworld and the upper world in Dutch society.”

As well as money laundering, cash compensation for work also risks workers being exploited as well as unfair competition, and fraud, the agency said.

FIU-Nederland also highlighted the rise of healthcare-related fraud, which it said is increasingly organised, involving “complex networks of multiple legal entities and in some cases showed a link to serious organised crime”.

The Netherlands has thousands of small companies offering care services, ranging from community nursing operations to psychiatric services, youth coaching, and residential care. They are funded by local authorities and health insurance companies, often via PGBs, or personal care budgets which allow people who need care to buy in services themselves.

Fraud can take many forms, often by billing for hours that they did not work, but in some cases, companies are claiming cash without providing any services at all.

Fake qualifications

Earlier this week, health minister Connie Helder and education minister Robbert Dijkgraaf warned MPs that fraud, poor training, faked certificates and the use of unqualified staff, often through dodgy staffing agencies, is rampant within the community care sector.

The ministers based their claim on a quick-scan report by healthcare inspectors who were asked to look into allegations made by a number of healthcare professionals in January this year.

The ministers have urged everyone involved to check certificates and qualifications thoroughly as a first step to shaking out abuses.