The number of paid police informants has increased in recent years. This emerges from the annual report on police investigative methods published by the FPS Justice and mentioned on Monday in La Dernière Heure.
In total, 824 rewards were made to informants in 2014, compared to 720 in 2012 and 796 in 2013. In upwards of six out of ten cases, informants were used as part of drugs investigations.
Informants led in 2014 to 1,526 arrests, with police rewards relating to the seizure of more than 500 vehicles, more than 600 weapons, more than four million euros in cash, and more than seven tonnes of drugs.
The volume of direct communications, through microphones and hidden cameras, also mushroomed. In eight years, their number rocketed, by a factor of three, going from use in 24 criminal cases in 2006 to 71 in 2014.
Lastly, infiltrations slightly increased: there were 53 in 2014, of which 40 either involved drugs cases or criminal gangs.
(Source: Belga)
