A lot could One today Wednesday night do not add to the news out The Telegraph of that morning: The king pardoned quizmaster Frank Masmeijer. He no longer has to serve the last part of his nine-year prison sentence. But why he was pardoned (in fact a decision of the minister), EenVandaag knows just as little as everyone else. So it remains with a lecturer in criminal law and criminology – Wiene van Hattum from the University of Groningen – who explains that pardons are quite exceptional and that the reason varies from case to case. She’s too decent to speculate. Sorry, I’ll do it then. Perhaps Masmeijer is ill, mentally or physically, or has convincingly repented. It remains fascinating. That good NCRV presenter who helps smuggle more than 460 kilos of cocaine across the border. What went on in that big head?
Skull lifted
Let that be the question that has been sought for an answer for three Wednesdays, in the KRO-NCRV documentary series Inside the deceiver’s brain. What makes a scammer able to scam? Is it a gift, is there a flaw somewhere, do they have an extra sense? Six master crooks – all male – are subjected to tests and interrogations for a number of days by a team of experts. Voluntarily. On Wednesday evening, Helmut Kiener’s skull was lifted. He committed the largest hedge fund fraud in German history. Barclays Bank poured $220 million into its fund – nothing came of it. Another 5,000 private investors entrusted him with $141 million – that too disappeared. He was sentenced to ten years and eight months in prison. He does.
The three investigators – a forensic psychologist, a behavioral researcher and a neuroscientist – are just not yet welcoming him like a hero. What a lot of money he had raked together, what fraud, and what a lot of people he duped with it. Helmut Kiener is flattered to laugh.
The scientists have him run tests on the computer to see how many risks he is willing to take. They watch his body language. He sits with his legs wide during conversations – a sign of dominance. Only “alpha males” take up more space than their bodies size. They ask about his childhood. His mother owned a grocery store, his father was a carpenter. And yes, he also worked hard at home and then it was important, says Kiener, not to cry, because then he would hit even harder. His sister describes him as a shy, clumsy boy who, indeed, was regularly beaten unjustly.
Concealing smile
An abusive father with a pinch of Catholicism gives the researchers insight into what may have pushed Kiener to build a network of lies and false promises. At its peak, there was 2.7 billion in his fund. He had a $23 million house in Florida and his own private jet that could fly farther than Donald Trump’s. And then came the credit crisis of 2008. His fund was worth nothing anymore. He should have filed for bankruptcy. But he didn’t. For he who is weak, he learned, will be beaten. The great “cooking the books” began. Fumbling with numbers and numbers. Look at his face when he talks about it. He smiles. Not a real smile, says the behavioral scientist, but a “concealing smile”. One that inspires confidence.
This man, with the look of a high school economics teacher, can’t be that bad, can he? Thousands of people entrusted him with their money. Especially doctors, he says. “They are too busy to watch their money.” He himself suspected that a brain abnormality made him a villain. A disease. Unfortunately for him, the scientists determine that his brain functions completely normally. Still disappointing.