1,500 reported mobsters in Belgium

There are almost 1,500 mafia-type mobsters operating in Belgium, La Dernière Heure reports, quoting 2010 figures released by the federal police. More than 200 cases involving criminal gangs – including eight murders – were treated in 2010, resulting in 1,490 individuals being apprehended. Of these, 576 (38 percent) were Belgian, 142 Dutch (9.2 percent), 72 Moroccan (4.5 percent), 71 Italian (4.8 percent) and 45 Romanian (3 percent). One third of the people arrested are in their 30s and one in 10 is over 60. While the profession is mostly male, the proportion of women is on the increase, reaching the 10 percent mark. The federal police are reluctant to use the term ‘mafia’, but they define a criminal organisation as a group of at least three people, whose partnership exists for the purpose of gaining power or money using counter-strategies, threats or violence. Criminal organisations based in Belgium have nine members on average, and increasingly cross ethnic divides, with profit coming before rivalries; some gangs, for example, include both Serbs and Kosovars.