It was a million fraud with hundreds of victims. In the fall of 2008, raids were made at the Helmond investment office Easylife and the home of the director in Heeze. In a long -lending case, the judiciary issued prison sentences to the multi -member management. Now one of them, John Wolbers, is again in court in Den Bosch on Monday.
After the investment drama at Easylife, John Wolbers was also personally declared bankrupt. But Wolbers, who nowadays has a different surname, went to hold a strikingly luxurious lifestyle again. He is now suspected of, among other things, bankruptcy fraud and forgery.
There will be victims who still have to tighten the belt by the actions of Easylife, a case that is now about 16 years old. The company persuaded people to invest in American life policies. And that alone was a risky undertaking, according to the public prosecutor at the time.
“Auction of luxury sports cars and expensive items.”
But the vast majority of the 42 million euros that hundreds of investors invested was never spent on those life policies. Easylife bought 9 million in policies. The rest merged with private spending, real estate and royal rewards for advisers. John Wolbers always denied being rich by pushing money back, he claimed to have earned a lot of money with another company. Even before he started Easylife.
The auction of all luxury sports cars and expensive items from the Easylife management caused the necessary stir, but the 1.25 million euros in revenue was not enough to compensate the approximately five hundred victims. The American life policies were sold again, but this raised four million euros. The investors often had the check.
“Alleged deployment of company money for a visit to luxury brothel.”
The behavior of the suspects in the courtroom also attracted attention. John Wolbers, for example, accidentally broke a seat back against the court during a passionate tirade. And intervened the public prosecutor after he was called a liar four times by Wolbers. The board members also blamed each other for the fraud and there was a fierce discussion about the alleged deployment of company money for a visit to Luxury Bordel Yab Yum in Amsterdam.
It did not prevent the court from distributing prison sentences for scams and participation in a criminal organization. According to the judiciary, the company’s administration was a chaos and the company could have known that the obligations to the investors could not be met in this way. On appeal, the Court of Appeal also handed out prison sentences.
For the hundreds of victims, the Easylife case was a long agony. And the lawsuits did not stop after this criminal case. Dupers felt that the judiciary had intervened far too late at Easylife. They also thought that the judiciary knew early on the malpractice at Easylife at the time few people had put money into money. The victims dragged the Public Prosecution Service, the Financial Markets Authority and De Nederlandsche Bank to court. But the judge rejected the accusations.
