Criminal gangs have infiltrated the Dutch healthcare system “on a large scale” by using fake qualifications or setting up their own care agencies, police have warned.

Criminals can buy diplomas on the internet, often from other gangsters who run bogus qualification agencies, and use them to obtain jobs earning thousands of euros a month.

Others operate rogue care providers that offer poor quality services and inflate their income by submitting declarations to insurers for care that was never provided.

“Criminals earning €12,000 a month are the rule rather than the exception,” the Midden-Nederland police division wrote in a report seen by RTL Nieuws.

“We have brought in around 100 dealers in the last four years,” one community beat officer told the report’s compilers. “I estimate that 80% of these guys are working in healthcare or said they were going to.”

Police say the gangs are particularly active in areas where there are few checks and a shortage of qualified staff, such as night shifts and care for the elderly and people with learning difficulties. They warn that the trend is dragging down standards of care and leading to patients being neglected or abused.

“One young man with learning difficulties was forced to stand naked in front of a window for hours,” police wrote. “Another was forced to display his private parts on a public street and lick the shoes of his so-called care provider.”

No prosecutions

Criminals with in the healthcare sector are also exploiting their patients by recruiting them into activities such as drug dealing, police warned. They also use their jobs as alibis, enabling them to run criminal errands while supposedly working for a rogue care provider.

The lack of checks on qualifications and staff is compounding the problem, the report says. The qualifications agency DUO reported 100 cases of fraud to police in 2023, but not a single one resulted in a prosecution.

Mariska Schutte, director of KansPlus, an organisation for people with learning difficulties, called the revelations “bizarre” and a “hard reality”.

She called for politicians in The Hague to take action to protect the vulnerable. “If there is one example, there must be others we don’t know about. Our clients have the right to the extra protection and supervision they need.”

Police said in their report that government and health providers needed to work together to combat the influence of the underworld in the care system.

“System errors need to be corrected and barriers need to be put up to stop the undermining of the healthcare sector and eliminate abuses that have emerged,” they wrote.