Some of the conspiracy theorists and ‘wappies’ criticizing corona policy and the Ukraine war turn out to be common scammers. Hopefully their supporters will wake up one day.
Prominent conspiracy theorists and corona deniers were convicted of fraud last week. That they have undermined a sensible policy that should protect the Dutch population with their criticism is so far, but it is allowed. They now also appear to have put donations in their own pocket.
Recently, banners of conspiracy thinkers with texts such as “Mark Rutte summoned” or “Marion Koopmans summoned” have been hanging along the A7 motorway, with the request below to donate money to a foundation that will supposedly conduct lawsuits.
What can happen with such donations became clear last week in a court ruling against the prominent conspiracy theorists Pieter and Jade K. of the so-called Extra-Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (BPOC) 2020. They turned out to have put almost 400,000 euros in donations in their own pockets. For example, the self-proclaimed ‘reverend’ Pieter K. used part of the money to pay off his own debts and those of his children and spent another part on Aruba.
They received the money by asking for donations from the public after publicity campaigns criticizing the corona policy. In the same way, the well-known ‘wappie’ Willem Engel and Thierry Baudet of the Forum for Democracy also ask for donations from the public. Engel has also been convicted several times. Baudet has to hand in part of his salary as a Member of Parliament because he has not complied with the rules; he did not report thousands of euros in ‘additional income’ that he received from these kinds of donations.
Time and again, these kinds of conspiracy theorists take advantage of people who in themselves have understandable questions about government policy. Their criticism of corona policy or now Ukraine policy is not based on facts and is quite undermining, but that is allowed in a democracy.
Now that it turns out that they also defraud their own followers and simply pocket the money they receive, you would hope that their supporters would wake up one day.