Liaison officer Peter Slabbers - "We do this together."
Peter Slabbers was a liaison officer at the LKA NRW from January 2015 to June 2017. His task was to improve cooperation between the police in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands. A strategic task that was assigned to Department 3 "Strategic Crime Prevention" at LKA NRW. The cooperation was initially only planned for one year. There were enough common fields of action. Initially, the focus was on domestic burglary and drugs. However, other areas of work quickly emerged that made it necessary to react: Human trafficking, financial investigations, rocker crime, illegal waste transportation, Islamist terrorism. The list of common topics grew and grew.
What were the biggest joint successes? "The collaboration on the issue of ATM blasts went particularly well. I had the feeling that if we didn't do anything as Dutch people, we would have a real problem. I went back to the Netherlands and discussed the issue. We sat down together in Arnhem in October 2015 and decided: We'll do this together. There was only one meeting. The police and the public prosecutor's office on both sides of the border agreed immediately. I've never experienced that before. You could see how real police cooperation has grown here. In particular, the joint counter-terrorism exercises in 2016 and 2017 have brought both countries further forward. But there is still a lot to do here. We have also taken steps in the right direction in terms of evaluation and analysis. Department 3 of the LKA NRW is working together with the evaluation unit of the Limburg unit. The aim is to improve cross-border crime analysis. And finally, some progress has been made in the fight against car theft. Officers from NRW, the Netherlands and Belgium meet two to three times a year. Situation reports and expertise are exchanged and ways of working together successfully are discussed."
The new German-Dutch liaison at the LKA NRW: Cordula Kolbinger and Eugène Heijnen
"I bring people together who work together," says Eugène Heijnen, whose official home is in Maastricht at the Eenheid Limburg. His German counterpart Cordula Kolbinger from the LKA NRW supports him in this.
Eugène Heijnen has been Peter Slabbers' successor since January 2018 and takes on the same role as his predecessor as liaison officer. The 60-year-old Hoofdinspecteur can look back on 40 years of service and has initiated many major police projects during this time. In 2013, for example, he played a key role in the reorganization of the National Police in the Netherlands. Whether it was organized crime, the refugee crisis in Greece in 2016 or leading the C(TER) - Counter Terrorism, Extremism and Radicalization exercise - Eugène Heijnen was always there when explosive issues had to be tackled quickly and on a large scale.
Criminal Chief Inspector Cordula Kolbinger is a member of the LKA NRW and has worked there for many years as a member of the legal assistance team. She has also been deployed abroad several times, including at Europol. She has therefore been active in international cooperation for a long time and has a wealth of experience. She took over the role of liaison officer in the Netherlands in October 2017 and now provides direct information on the latest developments in the neighboring country. She performs her duties at the Landelijke Eenheid in Driebergen. The Landelijke Eenheid is a state authority, most comparable to a state criminal investigation department. There are also ten regional units within the national police force.
