Europol’s new most wanted list of fugitives has been announced and it is predominantly full of women. With their latest campaign, Crime has no gender, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation wants to make people more aware of the role women play in the criminal circuit, and, of course, catch these criminals.
Women make up the majority on the latest most wanted list. In fact, 18 of the 21 most wanted are women. According to Anne-Marie Slotboom, associate professor of criminology at de Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, investigation authorities and the public often have a blind spot when it comes to female criminals. Women are often seen as “the partner of” and this can give a distorted view.
Women are, in the majority of cases, involved in financial crimes: “In corruption and money laundering cases, 20 percent of suspects are female”, Slotboom states. She adds that “you hardly ever see women involved in violent crimes; for many women, violence is not the way to achieve things.”
The first Europe’s Most Wanted list came out in 2016 and since then 69 criminals have been found as a direct result of the public recognising them from the lists. Many criminals have also turned themselves in after seeing their name and photo on the Europol website.
So, who does the Netherlands have on the list as their most wanted? That would have to be Elizabeth Dizon Honrada, a 57-year-old Filipino woman who has been sentenced to five years in prison in the Netherlands. Together with her husband, Honrada smuggled dozen of kilos of cocaine by boat from Surinam into the Netherlands. She is presumed to be hiding from the law in Saudi Arabia.
Want to see the full list of criminals? Just head to the Europol most wanted website and click on the people covered by masks. As you read more about their stories, their faces will be revealed.
Thumb: EUROPOL/ENFAST