The Netherlands’ floriculture industry is its third largest export sector, contributing over €6.2 billion ($7.4 billion) to its economy. Due to its cross-border nature, the floriculture sector has a large, well-developed logistics infrastructure. Exporters deliver flowers all over Europe via road transport, which makes this infrastructure lucrative for criminals. Under the ‘Resilient Floriculture Sector’ program, municipalities, investigation services and the business community are collaborating to safeguard the floriculture sector against crimes.
Taking stock of the crime in the floriculture sector, the ‘Resilient Floriculture Sector’ steering group has published its investigations in the report ‘Mainport in the second line: on floriculture and subversion’. The report states that the floriculture road transport infrastructure is misused for cross-border transportation of drugs from the Netherlands. Criminals further use the floriculture façade to perform fraud, money laundering, labor exploitation, smuggling of weapons, cigarettes and fireworks, etc.
To make the floriculture sector resilient to crime, municipalities and police must be aware and willing to share intelligence information. To prevent labor exploitation, it is further important to tighten the codes of conduct and screening procedures. Other recommended methods include the deployment of more investigative services and the development of a public-private sanctions system.
Source: Royal Flora Holland