On March 30, the FAST (Fugitive Active Search Team) organized a hackathlon for the first time. Various specialists from the federal and local police, State Security (VSSE), General Intelligence and Security Service (SGRS) and Customs took part. Their goal: to seek information on forty fugitive criminals through publicly available sources such as websites.
In this context, the federal police have just announced a third arrest, in Colombia, carried out on April 8…
Before that, a first arrest had already been made on a farm in Namur. It was regarding a man who had escaped from prison in North Macedonia in 2021. Given that the man had already lived in Belgium in the past, there was a chance that he was hiding there. That’s why the man had been added to the hackathon list.
Another fugitive, DM, was arrested in Manchester. The man had not appeared at his trial before the Brussels Criminal Court on Wednesday April 6, 2022, thus wanting to escape his sentence. His file was also integrated without the hackathon process. And because of this, the script for his arrest was almost ready in case he didn’t show up for his trial.
A third arrest took place on April 8. He was a fugitive who had been sentenced in absentia to 7 years in prison by the Brussels Court of Appeal for international drug trafficking and membership of an international criminal organization. The arrest took place in Bogota, the Colombian capital. This third inmate had already been located in South America, and further investigation in the days following the hackathon resulted in “to map little by little his itinerary of escape and displacement“, according to the federal police.
“It was the first time that security services had used this kind of innovative solution to pursue fugitive criminals together.“said Minister of Justice Vincent Van Quickenborne. “This shows that close cooperation between all departments is the basis for efficient and thorough investigation work.“