site.btaBulgaria, Netherlands Strengthen Partnership in Combatting Fake Document Fraud

Experts from the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee, the national gendarmerie force of the Netherlands, are on a working visit to Sofia for a series of training sessions aimed at building capacity with their Bulgarian colleagues from the Border Police General Directorate of Bulgaria's Interior Ministry in the field of fake document identification. The courses will involve staff from all structures of the Border Police and will include a training programme that will allow local authorities to continue working independently, the Border Police General Directorate said in a press release on Tuesday.

The preparation of the programme began in 2024 following a visit by representatives of the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee to Bulgaria.

Luuk van Os, Luuk van Os, Acting Deputy Head of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Bulgaria, said that the training will enhance the capacity of Bulgarian border police officers in detecting document fraud. "Now, as a full member of the Schengen Area, cooperation in securing the EU's external borders between our countries is even more important. We highly value our long-standing cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and look forward to expanding it in the future," he added.

The long-standing police cooperation between Bulgaria and the Netherlands covers various topics—security, ethics, human rights, electronic registration of dangerous materials, human trafficking, assisting in migrant return processes, traffic police, among others.

The Border Police Deputy Director, Senior Commissioner Radoslav Kulekov, voiced his satisfaction with the launch of the initiative, noting that staff from the Centre for Combating Fake and Forged Documents at the Border Police General Directorate have been actively working on this task for the past year and a half.

"Strengthening bilateral cooperation with the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee in this specific area of law enforcement is extremely important, considering that we established our Centre based on the Dutch model. Following Bulgaria's accession into Schengen across all internal borders on January 1, 2025, this initiative represents the next logical step in upgrading the established connections—as a result of our efforts to maintain high levels of security going forward," the Border Police’s official statement further said.