Because of its historical development and geographical location, the Netherlands is especially attractive for the through-flow of crime and vulnerable to transit crime. Here we understand transit crime in a very broad sense as the throughflow of criminal assets from an origin country where the crime has been committed to a destination country with the use of an in-between ‘transit’ country (Unger et al., 2006). In order to determine the role of transportation companies in drug trafficking and other forms of transit crime in the Netherlands, we shall first explore what makes the Netherlands so particularly attractive for drug trafficking and other transit crimes, what are the organised crime groups involved in illegal businesses, what types of transit crime are committed, and what is the magnitude of these transit crimes (Sections 1 and 2). Section 3 then shows the use of transportation companies by organised crime for drug trafficking and other forms of transit crime in the Netherlands. What makes the Netherlands so particularly attractive for drug trafficking and other transit crimes? Already in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Dutch ‘merchant capitalism’ was based on trading, shipping and finance, rather than on manufacturing or agriculture. Merchant capitalism included investments in highrisk ventures such as pioneering expeditions to the East Indies to engage in the spice trade. These ventures were soon consolidated in the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which established the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, subsequently renamed the Amsterdam Bourse, in 1602. This was the first stock exchange to formally begin trading in securities. Trade and ship building also helped Rotterdam become Europe’s largest harbour (de Vries & van der Woude, 1997). Still today, the port of Rotterdam is the largest port in Europe, and until 2002 also functioned as the world’s busiest port, only later to be surpassed by ports in Singapore, Dubai and China. The trade and finance orientation of the Dutch, combined with their ...