By The Smartencyclopedia Staff & Agencies
Several highly sensitive files containing the personal information of top executives at Europol disappeared last summer from the secure facilities of this European police force in The Hague. This incident has been a subject of speculation and concern within the agency since then.
According to an internal statement from the agency, as reported by Politico, and sources close to the situation, the paper files containing personal information of Europol’s Executive Director, Catherine De Bolle, and other senior officials vanished before September 2023.
“On September 6, 2023, the Europol Directorate was informed that personal paper files of several members of the Europol team had disappeared,” reads the internal statement. The document adds that “other additional files” were also found missing after a thorough check of the agency’s records.
The agency, one of the largest in the European Union, which coordinates international investigations with national police authorities and partners such as Interpol and the FBI of the United States, deemed the incident a “grave violation of security and personal data”.
Four current and former Europol employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed to the same newspaper that some of the missing files were found by a citizen in a public location in The Hague and handed over to a local police station. However, it is unclear how long they had been missing or why they were removed from Europol’s premises.
The spokesman for the Hague police, Steven van Santen, stated that “the Hague police were involved in some details related to an ongoing internal investigation by Europol”.
The files belonged to Europol’s Executive Director, Catherine De Bolle, and three of her deputy directors: Jürgen Ebner, Andrei Lințǎ, and Jean-Philippe Lecouffe. These human resources files may contain information such as employment history, relevant training, dates of birth, marital status, dependents, current address, and other personal information.
Following the incident, the agency’s Head of Human Resources, Massimiliano Bettin, was placed on administrative leave. An email sent to his Europol email address received an automatic reply indicating that he did not have access to his email. Bettin is “actively applying” for a new job, according to his LinkedIn page.
The agency is investigating the case, with one theory suggesting that the files could have been removed to harm Bettin, in the context of internal conflicts within the agency.