FIOD: Urgent help needed ? Call +31631969502.
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In the Netherlands the FIOD is the institution that investigates fraud cases such as money laundering, forgery or crimes with regard to tax.
Have officers of the FIOD reached out for planning an interview? Then the following possibilities and considerations should be taken into account.
Main question
It is important to get information about the status of the person that is being asked to participate in an interrogation: is he being interviewed as a suspect or a witness?
If he is a suspect
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine a scene from an American film where someone is handcuffed, and the officer notes: “You have the right to remain silent...”
In criminal law – and Dutch criminal law does not differ from American criminal law in this respect – an important principle is that a suspect has the right to remain silent. No one can be forced to contribute to their own conviction. A suspect does not have to provide evidence against himselve and therefore has the right to remain silent (in the Netherlands this is called ‘zwijgrecht’).
There are two options: a suspect can invoke the right to remain silent, or they can answer the FIOD's questions. In other words, the choice is between: 1) invoking the right to remain silent or 2) giving a statement.
If he is a witness
A witness does not have the right to remain silent like a suspect does. However, this does not mean that a witness is obliged to cooperate with a FIOD interrogation. A common misconception is that a witness must give a statement at this stage. The obligation to testify only exists when the witness is summoned by a judge. When a FIOD officer approaches a witness unexpectedly, our experience is that there is almost never a summons from a judge.
This means that a witness also has two options: he can cooperate with the FIOD interrogation, or he can refuse to cooperate. Therefore, the choice exists between: 1) canceling the interrogation or 2) giving a statement.
Progress of investigation
Many of our clients are encountering the FIOD or the Dutch public prosecutor for the first time. A natural initial inclination might be to cooperate with the interrogation. After all, there is nothing to hide. Although the FIOD will inform a suspect of the right to remain silent, the suspect may quite easily fall into a dynamic of giving a statement. Remaining silent or not cooperating will most likely provoke resistance from the FIOD officers, as it will not expedite the costly FIOD investigation.
Analysis of alleged fraud patterns
It is important to recognize that FIOD officers – before making themselves known to you(r company) – have often been busy analyzing and selecting information for months. Among other things, an interrogation plan will have been made. During the interrogation certain data is often presented in sequence. This may involve documents from multiple years. The suspect/witness is questioned about this. Cases involving FIOD officers inherently pertain to complex matters. Even if you have nothing to hide – which is the case for most of our clients – it is not advisable, especially for a suspect, to cooperate unprepared and to give spontaneous statements about documents that require study / analysis.
Thorough preparation for interrogation
Making a statement before the FIOD is a specialized skill. Your words will be evaluated by a public prosecutor and possibly a criminal judge. Therefore, it is wise to choose those words carefully. For example, it is good to recognize whether questions contain an opinion or a speculation. And if you are unsure of something, it is preferable to say so directly (rather than guessing). Also from this perspective, a thorough preparation for an interrogation is advisable for both a suspect and a witness.
For questions, you can contact our attorney-at-law/partner Debbie Liem (debbie.liem@vdb-law.nl or +316-31969502). She help companies from abroad with fraud cases or white collar crime cases in the Netherlands.