The word ‘fixer’ usually refers to local mediators who help a correspondent on his way. But in Medellin Colombia, the word “fixer” seems to mean something else. Someone who links adopted children in search of their roots with family that is not theirs.
That’s the image that sticks after the broadcast of Scammers tackled, the program by journalist Kees van der Spek that was broadcast on RTL-5 on Tuesday evening. It KRO-NCRV-program without a trace admitted on Monday that at least two people who participated in the program had been linked to the wrong biological family in this way.
Van der Spek examines the Colombian fixer Edwin Vela in his broadcast. He has been working for Spoorloos since the early days of the program, which has been trying to link Dutch adopted children to their biological parents in more than 650 episodes since the first broadcast in 1990. Until 2010 he was the fixer of correspondent Edith Nieman.
gnawing doubt
The revelation of Van der Spek came about through the gut feeling of Fiona Teggatz from Assen, who was also adopted from Colombia. She has a foundation that brings about reunions between adopted Colombians and their families. “There is a large adopted Colombian community in the Northern Netherlands. If any of us in without a trace came, we all watched.”
When it’s her friend Barbara Quee’s turn, in 2005, and is told in the program that her mother would have been found, but would be in hiding and therefore unable to meet her, Teggatz’s doubts gnaw. How did the program know all this for sure? Until 2019 did without a trace not standard DNA test. Matches were created on the basis of documents. “I didn’t say anything then. After all, it’s hard to raise something like that on the basis of a feeling.”
Incorrect details
When Taggetz is in Colombia in 2017, her doubts return. “I met the Spoorloos correspondent there. I presented her with a number of cases, but her answers contained strange errors and inaccurate details. I kept getting different answers, even when I later submitted cases by e-mail.”
Once home, Teggatz rewatched all the episodes about Colombian children she knew. “I think you’re screwed,” Teggatz then told Quee. Another adopted child from Colombia was also found to be linked to the wrong parent after DNA testing. Van der Spek’s broadcast shows how he has now definitely found his mother after a DNA match.
If requests for contact with the program in 2018 are unsuccessful, the two decide to go to Van der Spek. Aware of a commercial channel. “We insisted that we get more information from Spoorloos, but what followed was complete radio silence.”
Only last Friday, a few weeks after Spoorloos learned of the broadcast, did the program contact Quee. “It kept me up all night,” editor-in-chief Daphne Jonathans told me over the phone.
Teggatz: “Oh really, we thought when we heard that. What do you think this has done to us all these years?” According to the two, from the telephone conversation emerges the image of a chaotic state of affairs. It turns out that three names of Quee’s alleged mother are circulating and the personal details of the ‘mother’ belong to other people.
DNA tests
Teggatz fears that these cases are not the only ones and also calls matches outside Colombia uncertain. “The only thing that offers certainty is a DNA match. I call on anyone who is now in doubt to do so.”
Presenter Derk Bolt does not want to respond to NRC. “Completely against my habit, I now keep my mouth shut. That’s better for everyone.” KRO-NCRV says it will investigate sixteen cases in which the Colombian fixer was involved. In two of these cases, the broadcaster says it has now confirmed the match by means of a DNA test, in one other case, the broadcaster learned last July that a child has been linked to the wrong parent. “We are going to re-examine the other twelve cases. If desired and possible, we will still offer those involved a DNA test.”