Samenvatting

Food fraud has recently been recognized as a blind spot among regulators. In Europe, few organizations have experience with large cases of food fraud; also scientific knowledge into this type of crime is limited. This article aims to contribute experience to this gap. The NVWA-IOD is a specialist crime unit in the Netherlands, carrying out criminal investigations into, among other things, food fraud. This article gives insight into numbers of cases dealt with by the NVWA-IOD in the past fifteen years, for different types of food fraud. Nine criminal cases, concentrating on suspects within trade and industry, are analyzed in more detail from a basic criminological perspective. There is looked into, among other things, the motive, the opportunity and the product. The cases discussed relate to products such as meat, eggs, fish and dairy products. The main motive for committing food fraud is making money; the gain makes fraudulent activities attractive and financially beneficial. Opportunities refer mainly to ambiguous laws and regulations and little supervision. Also, evasive behavior was found. To combat food crime, specialist knowledge of tempting opportunities is essential.