Sjoerd Top

• Executive Director
• Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (Narcotics) – MAOC (N), Portugal

Sjoerd Top is the MAOC (N) Executive Director since November 2021.

Before that he was a Police Commissioner at the National Unit of the Dutch National Police Corps. Between 2018/21, he was the Chief of the National Service of Infrastructure in charge of 1300 officers focusing on law enforcement and crime prevention of the Dutch national infrastructure covering mainly the highways, waterways, railways, air space and the internet (Darkweb).

He has previously carried out different functions within the Regional Unit of Rotterdam where he was responsible for the intelligence service.
After a long career as a Commander of the riot police squad, he became a Gold Commander in large scale police operations and crowd control management in 2012. He was responsible for policing several major international (sporting) events in the recent years. Most recently he was Gold Commander during the abduction of 14 crew members of a ship sailing under the Dutch flag at the Nigerian coast.

Sjoerd Top holds a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the NSOB University in The Hague, The Netherlands. More recently, he was the first police officer to follow the highest management course on the Dutch Military Academy. Aside from his native Dutch, he is fluent in English and has a working knowledge of German.