Wil M. van Gemert appointed Deputy Director Operations at Europol

The General Affairs Council of the EU today appointed Mr W. M. van Gemert as Deputy Director Operations at Europol.

Mr Van Gemert was born in 1960.  Following his secondary education he attended an institute of technology and subsequently applied to the Dutch Police Academy. He started his career with the Amsterdam police force, where he progressed through basic policing to policy support and from 1991 became more specialised in financial investigation and combating fraud. He also headed a unit of the Special Duty Police (responsible for maintaining public order and fighting riots). Additionally during his career with the Amsterdam police, he graduated from the University of Amsterdam with a degree in organisation management and policy advice.

In 1995 he was appointed Head of the National Investigation team, specifically of a new multi-disciplinary team at the Dutch National Police Agency (KLPD), focused on combating organised crime by means of financial investigation. In 1999 he was appointed project leader of a new Criminal Investigation Branch and tasked with restructuring criminal investigation within the KLPD.

On 1 March 2001 Mr Van Gemert became a member of the KLPD’s management team as Director of Criminal Investigation. In this capacity he was, inter alia responsible for the criminal investigation services of the KLPD. Mr Van Gemert had a staff of about 1500 people. He was responsible for the reorganisation of the KLPD into an agency with 12 operational services and 4 support services. The restructuring was finalised and implemented in 2002.  In 2003 he led a project for integrating the National Criminal Investigation Agency within the KLPD. Mr Van Gemert also filled various positions in international organisations and cooperative groups like Interpol and Europol.

In 2004, Mr van Gemert moved from the KLPD to the Dutch National Intelligence Service having been appointed as Director of National Security at the General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD). The directorate of National Security focuses on the combat of terrorism, violent and politically motivated activism, anti-integration tendencies and the so-called Counter-Terrorism (CT) Info box which gathers, compares and assesses information about individuals involved in terrorist activities.

On 12 January 2012, Mr van Gemert was appointed Director of Cyber Security. In this function he was responsible inter alia for the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) which became operational on 1 January 2012.

Mr van Gemert will start work at Europol on 01 May 2014. The Operations Department he will lead includes the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol (EC3) and is additionally responsible for supporting the EU Member States in fighting serious organised crime and terrorism.