Nine people were arrested last Monday, 28th March, in Belgium after the Flemish authorities carried out raids at three PostNL depots. The raids were made in connection with a Belgian investigation into national insurance fraud involving both PostNL and British parcel delivery company GLS.
One of the many issues about the companies that drew the authorities’ attention was the use of self-employed subcontractors to deliver parcels at extremely low rates.
Six of the arrested employees were released after a few hours of investigation, but the Belgian CEO of PostNL and his operations manager had to remain in custody longer. At the end of last week, it looked as though the pair them could get out of custody on Monday, but the labour prosecutor’s appeal against the release was accepted.
However, a third person who was still under custody, the site manager of the depot in Willebroek, was released yesterday.
“Extremely intimidating” course of action, says Benelux PostNL
Logistics solutions provider PostNL Belgium has released a statement after the raid.
In a letter, Liesbeth Kaashoek, Benelux director of parcels and logistics, PostNL, wrote:
„This course of action by the Belgian legal authorities is extremely intimidating for our people, of course, while prosecutor for the employment courts Gianni Reale has used the media to accuse us of “people trafficking”, being a “criminal organisation” and “forgery”
There has been no official notification whatsoever of the serious allegations, which are being aired without any evidence. We are totally in the dark as to what these suspicions are based on, making it very hard for us to defend ourselves against these persistent allegations.
We emphatically deny such major allegations, and would point out that the picture being painted does not resemble our daily work practices. As far as we’re concerned, there are no grounds whatsoever to besmirch PostNL’s good name in this fashion, and we consider this action out of all proportion and unacceptable. We stand firmly behind our people and delivery partners and are doing everything within our power to secure the swift release of our colleagues.”
Police found undeclared work
PostNL, formerly TNT N.V., is a mail, parcel and e-commerce corporation with its headquarters in the Netherlands and operations in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. It is publicly listed at Euronext Amsterdam.
The arrests of last week were not the first such actions against the company; there had been several raids on PostNL in the fourth quarter of 2021, and finally, police shut down two PostNL depots in December when more than 20 infringements were found – most of them related to part-time work schedules and undeclared work.
Last Monday, a very similar situation happened: police closed down two depots (one in Wommelgem and the other one in Willbroek). As the investigation is still ongoing, not many details have been published, but it is already known that violations related to the undeclared work of drivers and part-time work were then noted.