Police arrest 13 after raid on Amsterdam spyware shop

Amsterdam police on Tuesday arrested 13 people and seized weapons and cash following raids on city spyware shop One2spy and eight other premises.

In total, 200 officers and special investigators were involved in raids which took place in the early hours of the morning.

The shop, in the Baarsjes district of the city, ‘facilitated crime in all possible ways’, acting police chief Jeroen Poelert is quoted as saying by the Parool newspaper. The shop’s 39-year-old owner Farah el O is among those arrested.

The shop was raided after a far-reaching investigation following a tip-off, the paper says. Police found automatic weapons, radio frequency jammers, large sums of money and a range of ‘gadgets’, such as an electric shock device in the form of a lipstick.

Police involved in the raid wore balaclava helmets to prevent them being identified and were also told not to use names in case their actions were being secretly recorded.

The trade in spyware in the Netherlands is legal. However, ‘this spy shop had all sorts of criminals as clients, from burglars and armed robbers to people we know from the organised crime world,’ Poelert told the paper.

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