A former local council worker in The Hague who supplied fake passport to criminals, including the chief suspect in the Marengo trial Ridouan Taghi, is to stand trial at the end of November.

The public prosecutor said 50-year-old Mildred van D received €1000 for each of the 20 passports she falsified between May 2009 and October 2014, one of which found its way to gang leader Taghi.

An intermediary, F.N. who is currently in jail for a different offence and who delivered the passports, will appear in court beside her. He is also suspected of laundering the proceeds of the transactions.

The case came to light in 2016 when the police and the prosecution service accessed millions of encrypted messages sent via the Ennetcom network.

In a briefing to MPs on Friday, junior digitalisation minister Alexandra van Huffelen warned that ‘structural problems’ with the way passports are issued are resulting in ‘mistakes and fraud’. She said there have been dozens of cases of corrupt civil servants falsifying data, including photographs and names.