SKC, Solvinity, and SAS Partner to Combat Criminal Networks

SAS, a leader in analytics and AI, and Solvinity are pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Strategic Knowledge Center for Organized Undermining Crime (SKC). The SKC conducts research on trends and patterns that lead to strategic insights into the operations of organized crime, both nationally and internationally. By mapping these activities, early warning signs can be identified, helping enhance crime detection and prevention. Solvinity is responsible for hosting and managing the SAS software on the secure managed platform where the service is provided.

Criminal Forecasting

Drugs, heavy firearms, assassinations, and billions of euros in illicit funds – the threat of these forms of subversion is an inescapable reality in our world. While significant efforts are already underway in the Netherlands to combat crime, the battle must become more effective and intelligent.

To comprehend how organized crime operates in the Netherlands and beyond, greater knowledge is required. The SKC aims to develop strategic insights to improve crime detection and adapt to new methods employed by criminal organizations. The organization collaborates with various law enforcement bodies, including the police, the Public Prosecution Service, the FIOD (Fiscal Information and Investigation Service), Customs, the Tax and Customs Administration, and the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee.

The SKC seeks to penetrate these criminal organizations deeply using SAS technology to better predict where and how criminal activities manifest – essentially providing a strategic-level criminal weather forecast. This can be likened to a weather map that provides forecasts, but this map will show “criminal weather forecasts” or threat scenarios based on threat analysis.

"The new collaboration between SKC, Solvinity, and SAS will assist the SKC in proactively, effectively, and purposefully informing Dutch law enforcement and regulatory agencies."

Real-time Interactive Dashboards with SAS Viya

Using the software solution SAS® Viya, the SKC will employ real-time interactive dashboards for threat analysis. Global-scale data is utilized for this purpose, enabling the SKC to proactively detect subversive activities and risks to the Netherlands.

SAS Viya provides the SKC with key functionalities for:
Extracting and preprocessing data from various sources to create dashboards and analytical models.
Building and sharing interactive dashboards, including the ability to interactively and visually explore the underlying data.
Developing statistical and machine learning models for gaining deeper insights and conducting risk analyses.

Mapping Future Risks

While traditional dashboards mainly display static, historical facts, the SAS Viya platform’s analytics capabilities enable the mapping of underlying patterns and future risks. The intended dashboards are highly geographically oriented and depict the exchange of goods, people, and money between countries and continents. This allows the SKC to identify anomalies and generate concrete alerts. The underlying technical architecture of SAS Viya is based on cloud technology, with the software running in Docker containers managed by Kubernetes. The SKC will utilize Solvinity’s secure managed Azure Cloud environment for this purpose.

“With an advanced dashboard, we have current trends and developments at our fingertips. We translate these into what we call ‘criminal weather maps.’ This allows us to respond effectively to the ‘weather forecasts’ regarding organized crime,” said SKC Director Tom Driessen.

“The new collaboration between SKC, Solvinity, and SAS will assist the SKC in proactively, effectively, and purposefully informing Dutch law enforcement and regulatory agencies. This partnership will further establish and expand the SKC’s role as a Strategic Knowledge Center,” stated John Bilstra, Sr. Account Executive at the Ministry of Justice and Security and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management at SAS.