From ‘Great Awakening’ to sending death threats: A study of police-recorded crimes driven by conspiracy theories in the Netherlands

Criminal offences associated with conspiracy theories have caused media headlines in recent years. Previous research has mainly investigated the relationship between conspiracy beliefs and intentions to, or support for, committing crimes, often relying on self-report data. We used police report data to investigate actual criminal behaviour committed in the Netherlands between January 2019 and December 2022 associated with conspiracy theories. In these unique empirical data, we found 194 crimes that show a clear relationship between the crime and belief in conspiracy theories. Most of these were related to the sovereign citizen movement (n = 83), followed by COVID-19 conspiracy theories (n = 40), the Great Reset (n = 36), and the satanic paedophile ring conspiracy theory (n = 35). Consistent with previous research, multiple suspects reported believing in multiple conspiracy theories at once. Crimes related to the sovereign citizen movement reflect an aversion towards external authority and the idea that laws do not apply to sovereign citizens, whereas crimes related to other conspiracy theories often reflect a deep societal discontent in general. Better understanding of crimes associated with conspiracy theories can help institutions such as the police respond to these crimes more effectively.