Interviews with investigators Sample Clauses

Interviews with investigators. In addition to the case file analysis, interviews were conducted with several Dutch government officials (N=22) working on human smuggling. The interviewees were government officials from the former Human smuggling Information and Analysis Center (Informatie– en Analysecentrum Mensensmokkel – IAM), the former Human Trafficking Information Unit (Informatie Eenheid Mensenhandel – IEM), the Human smuggling Unit (Unit Mensensmokkel - UMS), the former Syn- thetic Drugs Unit (Unit Synthetische Drugs – USD), various team leaders of closed investigations into Chinese human smuggling, staff of the Aliens Police, detec- tives from the Criminal Intelligence Unit (Criminele Inlichtingen Eenheid – CIE) with contacts in the Chinese field and a civil servant from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in China. Interviews were also held with foreign police officials from the UK and Germany who worked closely with the Dutch authorities in past human smuggling investigations. Two police officials working for the Illegal Immigra- tion Group under the Serious Crime Department of Europol were also inter- viewed. In addition, several retired investigators were interviewed to get a better picture of the situation in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The civil servants interviewed are designated with the letter B, followed by a number, e.g. ▇▇, ▇▇▇ etc. The interviews were based to a certain extent on the focal points in section 2.3. Additionally, the interviewees who were involved in rel- evant investigations were asked about these cases as well. General background knowledge on Asian crime in the Netherlands was obtained from my earlier work and contact with members of the Southeast Asia team of the criminal investigation service of Rotterdam-Rijnmond from 1999 to 2001. This police team, which has since been disbanded, was established in 1998 for the specific purpose of mapping Southeast Asian crime in the Netherlands. It emerged that most of the criminality involved ethnic Chinese people. The sub- jects that repeatedly came up were drugs, extortion, burglary, credit card fraud, underground banking, murder and, of course, human smuggling. Human smug- gling was considered the connecting thread in numerous crimes in the Chinese community (Bureau Evaluatie, 2000: 21).