10 June 2008

AMSTERDAM - Amsterdam police have set up a special 'wanted for armed robbery' website with photographs and video images of armed robbers. Police are calling on the public to provide information on the robbers' identities.

The website, which went online on Wednesday, displays photographs of 17 people suspected of committing armed robberies in Amsterdam or surrounding communities, two at the end of last year and fifteen this year.

Amsterdam's Chief Commissioner Bernhard Welten says there was a disturbing increase in violent crime at the end of 2007. He says he set up a special team to think of new ways of solving the number of unresolved cases and the website was one of its recommendations.

It is the first time Dutch police have established a special website to identify robbers, though Rotterdam police have placed photographs of football hooligans on their website.

Since 1982 police have been showing photographs and video images of robbers on the weekly television programme 'Wanted by Police'.  

[Radio Netherlands / Expatica]

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