Minister makes anonymous reporting of unusual transactions impossible

Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius is also preventing (junior) civil-law notaries from anonymously reporting unusual transactions. She considers transparency, traceability, and verification of information by investigative services and the Public Prosecution Service to be essential principles of our legal system. She wrote this in an appendix to a letter to Parliament.

However, she does consider the safety of those reporting unusual transactions important. In consultation with the police, the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD), the Public Prosecution Service (OM), the Royal Dutch Association of Notaries (KNB), and the Dutch Association of Tax Advisors (NOB), even greater attention is being paid to ensuring the safety of those reporting unusual transactions. "An unusual transaction declared suspicious by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) Netherlands can be added to the criminal file as evidence. If this is considered for an unusual transaction reported by a small business, investigative services will take further action. The reporter will then be contacted to determine whether any (foreseen) threats arise if the report is included in the criminal file. The Public Prosecution Service will then assess whether measures can be taken to protect the reporter, such as anonymizing the data of the reporting entity in the criminal file," she wrote in an appendix to the letter to Parliament .

No addition
Inquiries with the Public Prosecution Service and the FIU-Netherlands revealed that they informed the Public Prosecution Service and the relevant investigative services of the tightened procedures in November 2020. The police and the FIOD informed the Minister that no contact was made with a small, reporting company in 2021. This is because there was no intention (yet) to add the small company's transaction, which FIU-Netherlands had deemed suspicious, as evidence in the criminal case file.

SP motion
In 2020, the House of Representatives adopted a motion from the Socialist Party (SP) requesting the government, in consultation with civil-law notaries and tax advisors, to explore how the security of those reporting unusual transactions could be better guaranteed, for example, by anonymizing the person reporting them in their criminal records. The Royal Dutch Association of Notaries (KNB) advocated for civil-law notaries to be able to report through the professional organization. Then-Minister Ferd Grapperhaus had already stated at the time that he would better protect those reporting, but that anonymization would not be possible.