written by Zsa-Zsa Rikken

Dutch and German police and law enforcement officers and officials work together on a daily basis to keep us safe on both sides of the border. But what does this mean? We spoke about a specific case with Stephan, who is part of the cross border police team (GPT) Kaldenkirchen–Venlo, a unique partnership between German and Dutch law enforcement officers. During a simple routine check, he stumbled upon a remarkable discovery: a car packed with stolen urns and grave ornaments. 

Stephan: “It was Saturday morning. Together with a German colleague from the Landespolizei, we were keeping an eye on incoming traffic heading towards the Netherlands. This car immediately stood out: it was old and we could tell from the license plate it wasn’t from the area. On top of that, the car was hanging very low to the ground, a sign that it was overloaded. That’s when the first alarm bells started ringing.” 

“The people in the vehicle didn’t have any travel documents with them, and that gave us the authority to conduct a search. When we opened the boot, we found grave ornaments and urns.” 

“I’ve now been working for the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee for 25 years. In all those years I’ve seen what people try to smuggle across the border, ranging from firearms to drugs. But urns, with the ashes of deceased people still inside, that took me by surprise. I looked at the men and could see from their faces that they knew what I was thinking. There was no need to waste words on it though.” 

“The added value of the GPT in such a case was that my German colleague was able to immediately start searching the German systems to see whether any reports of grave desecration had been filed in the region the car came from. And sure enough: more than a hundred graves had been vandalised. Without being able to exchange information flows, we would never have made that connection so quickly, and it would have been difficult to trace where the items came from.” 

“Because the men had no valid travel documents, we were able to deny them entry to the Netherlands. In parallel, we arranged for a German patrol just across the border to be ready to wait for them so that they could be arrested. This was way more efficient than having to arrest them in the Netherlands and start the longer process of transferring the case to the German police.” 

The cross border police team (GPT) in Kaldenkirchen–Venlo consists of around twenty staff members from four different organisations: the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, the National Police, the German Landespolizei and the Bundespolizei. Working from their shared office, about two kilometers across the border from Venlo, they cooperate on a daily basis to ensure security in the border region. 

According to Stephan, that is precisely the strength of the GPT. “We have four different organisations, each with their own competences, knowledge and experience. That means we constantly complement one another.” 

By working together in the field on a daily basis, the officers not only become familiar with each other’s ways of working, but can also make optimal use of each other’s competences and skills. These competences vary depending on the situation: on German territory, Dutch officers operate under the authority of their German counterparts, and vice versa. These arrangements are laid down in the Treaty of Enschede. Following consultations between Minister Van Weel and State Secretary Dobrindt last June, it was decided to modernise the treaty in order to further strengthen and streamline this cooperation.