Tuesday September 6: the podcast
‘Very explosive material!’ is today written in large letters above the podcast of entrepreneurs Yves Gijrath and Erik de Vlieger. The two begin with a disclaimer: ‘We are 99 percent sure this is true. However, listeners, not 100 percent. That’s why we’re keeping our fingers crossed.’
Gijrath says he has ‘a bank statement in which it is indisputable that a payment has been made to Jaap van Dissel privately’. The OMT chairman would have received 750 thousand euros from a Belgian bank account. From the Open Netherlands Foundation, the foundation that dealt with ‘testing for access’ during corona, a branch that involved hundreds of millions. ‘Crazy shit Erik’, says Gijrath. ‘And the same day, 400 thousand euros are transferred to an account in Aruba, to a certain Alvarez Comenas.’
Another 2,000 euros will go to a Romanian. ‘We just see that it is a real, authentic copy. I find it worrying’, says Gijrath. ‘We don’t want government officials, and that’s Van Dissel, who might have a hatch or a back door.’
After all, test providers made a lot of money from the tests, which are necessary for a valid QR code. The suggestion emanating from the story is that the Open Netherlands Foundation would have bribed the OMT to keep society closed for longer, so that they could earn more money.
Only: it doesn’t make sense at all. However, the OMT has always been very critical of access testing, which would not stop infections enough. Also, Van Dissel doesn’t talk about it at all: the OMT person who made contact with Open Netherlands was Andreas Voss. Apart from the fact that the OMT consists of dozens of scientists: not a group that is easily squealed or fooled by the chairman.
However, the podcast leaves that unmentioned. De Vlieger: ‘Dear people of the media, this is our gift for you to find out.’ On social media he advises his 41,000 followers: ‘Share it and draw the attention of the media; it’s your job.’
Wednesday 7 September: the fire blazes
Here and there the story of Gijrath and De Vlieger solidifies into hard truth. ‘OMT chairman Jaap van Dissel received € 750,000 from the Open Netherlands Foundation during corona time’, reports weblog NewRight. ‘If the following is true, Van Dissel is not just corrupt, but corrupt to the core’, tweets Member of Parliament Gideon van Meijeren of Forum for Democracy to his 81 thousand followers.
Earlier, the parliamentarian was whistled back in the House when he called Van Dissel ‘corrupt’; now he sees his chance to prove himself right. ‘Journalists, dive into this’, Thierry Baudet (275 thousand followers) also draws attention to the podcast of Gijrath and De Vlieger.
In the meantime, Gijrath gives more details in a new episode of the podcast. The transactions would have taken place in December 2021. Alvarez Comenas would be a law firm. And 51,750 euros would have been transferred back to Belgium, ‘to a private account of Van Dissel’.
He also nuances. “We’re not going to judge. I already saw Forum for Democracy say that Van Dissel is corrupt: you shouldn’t do that. You have to ask: what’s going on?’
De Vlieger: ‘If it isn’t true, we don’t have to hide in the dark, we’ve made the cut.’ After which he once again challenges ‘the media and politics’. “We’ve got the key facts up. I would say: gentlemen, place your bets.’
Backlash also comes. Going hard against the rumors includes Eric Smit, journalist and founder of Follow the Money. ‘First shoot, then ask’, he calls the approach of Gijrath and De Vlieger on Twitter. And: ‘What a filthy mess. And then yell at a journalist: do your job. I have rarely seen it so shameless.’
That night lays de Volkskrant first contact with Gijrath, the start of a series of conversations. Although Gijrath is open and helpful, he does not want to release the evidence he claims to have, in his own words to protect his sources.
Thursday 8 September: on public television
‘And furthermore: a very large bag of money for Jaap van Dissel’, reads the announcement Unheard of News, the talk show of Ongehoord Nederland, on NPO1. “Extremely shocking, about money that Jaap van Dissel would have received and later funneled away to Aruba, very shocking,” says presenter and opinion maker Raisa Blommestijn. ‘Of course there has been talk before about certain behavior by Jaap van Dissel that could indicate corruption.’
The podcast of Gijrath and De Vlieger is now at five in the hit list of best listened podcasts. ‘That’s quite funny, I can’t say anything else’, says Gijrath. There are also parliamentary questions about the case: parliamentarian Wybren van Haga wants the minister to clarify.
But in the meantime, the story itself shows more and more cracks. Trusted sources around Jaap van Dissel give against de Volkskrant indicated that Van Dissel would be the last to accept bribes, in private he even makes mocking jokes about it. There is no Alvarez Comenas on Aruba, not even in the lawyers’ register. Research does not reveal any Belgian accounts of the Open Netherlands Foundation. In the meantime, the foundation itself points out that all payments are checked by the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport. ‘Every expenditure is and can be accounted for’, according to the foundation.
Why does the foundation not actively seek the media with that message? “Since the reporting is so far removed from the facts, we want to pay as little attention to this as possible,” the foundation said when asked.
Tuesday September 13: collision
‘This would mean that Mr Van Dissel is many times more corrupt than we dared to suspect. Therefore every reason to have a plenary debate about this as soon as possible, so that the bottom stone comes out.’
These are the words of Gideon van Meijeren, who wants to request a debate on the matter in the House of Representatives. Will, because he doesn’t get any support. ‘If there is corruption, you simply have to report it to the Public Prosecution Service’, says CDA member Joba van den Berg. The video recording of the incident is very popular on right-wing blogs and social media, as ‘proof of the hypocrisy of the cartel parties’, says Van Meijeren.
In conversations with de Volkskrant Gijrath distances himself from Forum’s statements. But although he is helpful to the newspaper and gives some details along the way, he does not want to share the evidence. First, he wants to investigate the matter further himself.
Wednesday 14 September: the proof
‘BREAKING’, appears late at night on a Telegram group of anti-government protesters. ‘We have now faced the infamous transaction overview of Jaap van Dissel [sic] and what we see is really too shocking for words,” writes an anonymous sender. In addition, an overview of, indeed, the transactions that Gijrath has listed.
But it soon becomes clear that the overview of everything is wrong. Van Dissel’s ‘private account’ does not appear to be in his name – apart from the fact that the account holder ‘Prof. JT van Dissel’, while banks do not use titles. The Romanian number is incorrect, the address of Van Dissel’s alleged bank is incorrect, and the amounts on the statement do not add up to the final amount. In short, the receipt appears to be a rather clumsy forgery.
Thursday 15 September: trepidation
In the daily podcast Gijrath starts with a summary of rumors discussed earlier in the podcast, which eventually turned out to have a grain of truth. But the two do not retract the claims about Van Dissel in so many words. ‘You have neatly built in a disclaimer of that 1 percent. Let’s not blame Gijrath and the Flyer when we name something.’
In the meantime, columnist and statistics professor Casper Albers is poking fun at the ‘evidence’ against Van Dissel on the internet, with a handwritten note full of spelling mistakes: ‘Dear Professor Van Dissel, you will receive ten million euros from me. Don’t tell me more! Greetings from Bil Gates.’
Monday 19 September: the denouement
NRC the case breaks open in the evening, with a remarkable revelation: the information available to Gijrath and De Vlieger has been available since May NRC. The case was left there, because the information after inspection turned out to be too doubtful.
The information therefore came from someone who had a bone to pick with the ministry: Maarten Cuppen, entrepreneur in test streets, and at the time, owner of U-Diagnostics BV, one of the major commercial providers of corona tests in the country. However, when the ministry subsequently did not work with him, but with Open Netherlands for access testing, he became furious. Cuppen filed summary proceedings (which he lost) and engaged a detective, Dick Steffens, to investigate the foundation. He then supplied the incriminating documents.
Also platform Follow the Money Turns out the tips of Cuppen and Steffens already to have researched before — and discarded, as unprovable nonsense. That was more than a year ago, in August 2021, revealed FTM. It Financial Newspaper already dedicated one extensive article on the case. But that newspaper also found no trace of evidence of bribery or malpractice: ‘the few data that are verifiable, rattle or are forcefully denied by those involved upon inquiry’.
Tuesday, September 20: end?
This is how the rumor about Van Dissel’s bribe came, saw and conquered the attention of millions of Dutch people – after which it gradually crumbled. Instead of ignoring the case, like the populist right the mainstream media blamestwo newspapers and a journalistic platform had long since investigated her, and dismissed it as unfounded nonsense.
Shouldn’t the incriminating papers about Van Dissel have been weighed more critically this time as well? Everyone involved quickly shakes hands from that hot potato. Gijrath and De Vlieger had already hidden behind the ‘1 percent doubt’, Ongehoord Nederland built in the words ‘if it is true’, detective Steffens tells NRC having merely “received and forwarded” the information, Cuppen says he “cannot verify whether it is true or not.”
For example, everyone appeals to the familiar: not our information, we just pass it on. Without anyone taking the responsibility to take a closer look at the passed horse in the mouth.
Only for Gijrath, the case does not seem to be finished yet. He says he got his information from someone other than Steffens or Cuppen. “That’s why I think this is such a strange story.”
In the meantime, RIVM has had enough and wants the podcast makers to apologize. “We find it particularly bad that the makers of the podcast have spread defamatory fabrications about Jaap van Dissel,” the RIVM said in a statement. ‘Apparently the gentlemen have not bothered to carry out the simplest investigation or to apply adversarial procedure beforehand. They could have easily determined that their claims are unfounded,” the institute said.
With the cooperation of Erik Verwiel and Xander van Uffelen