Today, 16th February 2018, Mr van Gemert, Deputy Director Operations at Europol, and Mr van der Vlist, General Director of the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), signed a strategic partnership between the two agencies on financial investigations.

Europol and FIOD share a common goal of fighting international money laundering and recovering and confiscating the proceeds of crime – the only true deterrent for organised crime.

Following the successful first Europol/Dutch FIOD joint workshop on financial investigations in July 2017, the need was felt to formalise a strategic partnership to improve the level of information exchange, as well as to increase cooperation, mutual assistance, expertise and knowledge sharing.

This new document establishes joint project groups to specifically address the topics of offshore centres, high-end money laundering, new payment methods and virtual currencies, as well as legal barriers and difficulties. New joint projects stemming from the strategic cooperation are expected to follow.