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"There is a strong establishment of European figures who qualify as porn barons in terms of the influence theyhave had, the products they have sustained and the money they have made. Any of the following would relate colourful and entertaining tales of deals done, of illegal shipments delivered, battles with the authorities and fortunes accumulated. Leif Hagen and Rolf Rahm have major publishing and distribution empires in Scandinavia. Charlie Geerts' Amsterdam-based Intex is second only to ZBF, and veteran West German publisher Horst Peter of Essen who recently took over the European distribution of Caballero videos from Geerts." (Porn Gold, p. 77. 1988.) Porn godfather Reuben Sturman partnered with Scala for years. Ron Braverman lived in Europe overlooking the operation. Many people suspect Scala of playing a nefarious role in the September 1995 fire that virtually leveled the Doc Johnson plant in North Hollywood. Then someone blew up a bank in the Cayman Islands. Law enforcement speculates that the two events amounted to a last battle for control of Sturman's remaining empire. According to insiders, three major factions fought for control of the porn industry, and the retaliatory bombing targeted a place where a significant amount of one of the faction's assets resided. The bombing concluded the struggle, and the three groups - one of them headquartered in Paris - agreed to divide the international porn market into equal shares. (What Wild Ecstasy p. 371-372) Journalist Harris Gaffin met gold-chain wearing, (rich thugish drug-smuggler lookalikes) leaders within the European porn distributor SCALA in Amsterdam in 1997. "It was like a movie," remembers Harris. "We were in a five star hotel on the coast of Holland. A friend of mine introduces me to the people of SCALA. They're casual, a little too young to be retired, but they're retired. They've got gold chains and open shirts, but no hair on their chests. They're Dutch. Blonde hair. They sported gold Rolex watches. They paid for the drinks. They seemed street savvy. They were rough… You felt like they had an empire that they were trying not to show, but at the same time wanted you to see. With all their gold [jewelry]… It's nice for the waitress to know, 'Don't mess with us and make sure our drinks come on time. We'll leave a big tip.' These guys had cash." Charlie Geerts, Reuben Sturman's old partner, is the heavy behind Scala and some say he is the most famous European pornographer ever.
Porner Perry Ross, late husband of Angela Barron, lost his life in Amsterdam, the biggest city in Holland. Ross's death was officially ruled suicide but many suspect drugs and foul play. Ross at the time oversaw Mark Carriere's enormous operations. In 1998, veteran porner Sydney Niekirk, a Dutch Jew, won a $five million lawsuit from Carriere over Mark's fraudulent European operations. Scala and Beate Uhse want to enter the American porn market. They have the dollars, and Scala at least has the total lack of ethics which will enable it to feel right at home with American porn scum. Former Reuben Sturman lieutenant Ron Braverman, who probably stole Doc Johnson from Sturman while the porn godfather was descending to Alzheimers, stole, I hear, millions of dollars from Charlie Geerts and Scala by skimming (during the 1980s) the peep machine returns. Braverman, like most of his porn peers, has the ethics of a salamander. Mark Carriere, I hear, did not learn his lesson from his legal loss to Niekirk. Carriere recently tried to f--- his European distributor Mark Franks. And just like with Sydney, it appears that Carriere is going to lose millions of dollars. Carriere sent Mike Kovaks to Amsterdam to establish a distributorship. 04/30/1995 South China Morning Post HONG KONG has become the focus of a five-year Dutch money laundering and tax evasion investigation linked to a series of murders, drug trafficking, pornography, and millions of dollars in allegedly dirty cash. But a hearing last Thursday to gather evidence in the complex case was postponed until May 5, after defence solicitors Haldanes called for more time. The investigation revolves around alleged tax evasion by Dutchman Charlie Geerts , who runs the largest pornographic business in Europe and who was arrested last November. His company, Scala, based in Holland where pornography is legal, is also under investigation, as is a Hong Kong company believed to have been used as a front to launder about $100 million since 1988. His co-accused is alleged bagman Ricardo Reeberg, who was arrested on March 23. Reeberg's detention coincided with the arrival in Hong Kong of officers from the Fiscale Inlichtingen en Opsporings Dienst, the equivalent of the Inland Revenue Service in the US. A source said profits from European drug trafficking were brought to Hong Kong and laundered through the company here, then wired back to Holland as large loans for gang members. A Haldanes lawyer said the May 5 hearing would seek to "set aside the order for an examination" which, if approved, would block the line of inquiry in Hong Kong. A team of Dutch investigators, including a judge, a prosecutor and a detective, are continuing the Hong Kong probe, which stems from the murder of one of Britain's "Great Train Robbers" and one of the largest drug seizures in Europe. Charlie Wilson, who was one of the masterminds of the 1963 great train robbery, was released from jail in 1978 and became involved in drug smuggling. He was shot dead in April 1990 at his villa in Spain. Wilson was believed to have been killed by former south London gangster Roy Adkins, who had teamed up in the 1970s with Dutch drug baron Klaas Bruinsma in a syndicate that moved large amounts of hashish from Pakistan to Holland and on to other countries. Millions of dollars worth of profits from the operation, which smuggled drugs into the UK in cars on cross- Channel ferries, was laundered through banks in Hong Kong over several years. Five months after Wilson's murder, Adkins, 41, was shot dead in Amsterdam by two gunmen who have never been traced. Bruinsma, identified in Dutch newspaper reports as the world's largest hashish smuggler, was shot to death in June 1991. Bruinsma linked up with Adkins to set up a global network using companies set up in Pakistan to ship the drugs to Europe in containers of textiles and souvenirs. But a plan to smuggle a massive 45,000 kilograms of hash into Holland in 1990 failed when the consignment, worth 135 million and known as the Big Mountain, was seized by Dutch police. The gangsters fell out and a shooting match erupted at a sex club in Amsterdam, although neither man was injured. Investigators believe Bruinsma was eventually killed because he became a liability to his own syndicate. A disgraced former Dutch police officer, Martin Hoogland, was convicted of his murder in June 1993 and another killing, and was sentenced to 20 years in jail. Dutch pal aided in Sturman bail KAREN E. HENDERSON; STAFF WRITER; 12/06/1989 The Plain Dealer Cleveland, OH (Copyright (c) The Plain Dealer 1989) A Dutchman who investigators say is an international distributor of child and adult pornography put up half of the $1 million bail for pornographer Reuben Sturman. Charles Geerts, who was identified by Sturman in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court as a business associate and friend, contributed $500,000 through his company Scala Agenturen B.V. The affidavit states he did not seek security or collateral for the loan. Sturman was ordered by U.S. District Judge George W. White to file the affidavit showing the source of the bail money. Geerts and a Pennsylvania man were charged in 1985 by a federal grand jury in Philadelphia with unlawfully importing pornographic films and videocassettes for distribution in the United States. The 24-count indictment charged the men with conspiracy and importing merchandise by false and fraudulent practice. It alleged they distributed 8mm films and videocassettes depicting adults engaged in sexual activity with other adults and with animals. Geerts pleaded guilty to the charges. A federal judge sentenced him to the four months he had already spent in jail, and he was allowed to leave the country. The other man was sentenced to four months in jail and fined $30,000. Though the Philadelphia case concerned adult pornographic material, sources said Geerts was a major dealer in child pornography . Other sources of Sturman's bail money were Melo International Inc. and Metro Consultants, listed to Melvin Kamins, a business associate of Sturman's under indictment for allegedly helping Sturman hide his money, and Wednesday Co., listed to Roy May, husband of Paula Lawrence. Lawrence is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to conspiring to help Sturman hide his money. On 6/3/99, Hans Knoop, media consultant to powerful European porner Charlie Geerts, writes Luke: In your internet-column of June 1 you mentioned that you searched through Netscape search engine for "Charles Geerts ", but that all the links were in Dutch. " Can anyone help translate and give Luke the scoop on Geerts? " you asked. As a matter of fact I can. I know Charles Geerts from my childhood for over fourty years. I became an international journalist and war correspondent for national radio and t.v. and Charles went into the porn business. In the late seventies I left active journalism and became an independent media- consultant. In 1988 my old schoolmate Charles became one of my clients. Charles at that time owned Scala but sold the company in 1994 to Scala- Consipio. As from that moment Charles Geerts was no longer involved in the company, nor in the management. After Geerts retired in 1994 his main activity is real estate. So everything you mentioned about Geerts related to Scala is nothing but slander. This does not imply that what you reported about Scala is correct. I just want to make clear that I now act as the spokesman of Charles Geerts and not of Scala. When the new owner took over Scala in 1994 I also ended my relationship with the company. I want you to know that Charles Geerts has NEVER been engaged in or suspected of money laundering or drug trafficking. He has NEVER been arrested in connection with crimes you referred to, neither in Hong Kong nor in Holland. Geerts however has been arrested and suspected of evasion of Dutch income tax. He spend two weeks in custody for interrogation and was then released. After more than three years of investigation the matter was settled out of court. Geerts did receive a statement from the Amsterdam district attorney that he has NEVER been suspected of any crime and has not been convicted. So here is the scoop you were asking for! It is obvious that my client will not ignore your slanderous accusations. So I urge you to let me know before June 8 if and how you are going to rectify your story. In case you don't, or do not respond at all, I will fly to the US and will call a press conference. Furthermore I will, on behalf of my client, hire the best attorney in the US and keep you legally responsible for any damage sustained to my client as a result of your slanderous story. 6/5/99 Email: "[Dutch porner] Charles Geerts is bad news, supposedly having strong 'maffia'-ties. He's not director of Scala any longer, I think now his daughter runs the business. But it's a public secret that behind the scenes, he still runs the show." 6/8/99 Media rep for Dutch pornographer Charlie Geerts, Hans Knoop, writes Luke: As the deadline I put in my earlier message has expired without an editorial correction and apology I will feel obliged to take the neccesary steps. Instead of getting back to me (as you mentioned in your reply) you published another paragraph about my client and his daughter, once again containing slander. I want you to know that Betty Geerts is not involved in Scala at all and that Mr. Charles Geerts has no ties with organised crime at all. In fact he has no police record and never appeared in any Dutch court as an accused. He is not running Scala behind the scene and does not maintain any ties with the present management or owners of that company. My client has instructed me to take legal action against you. I will fly to the US shortly to take the necessary steps and will call a press conference to expose your slanderous accusations. 6/11/99 When I ask around the industry about obese Dutch porner Charlie Geerts, knowledgeable insiders keep bringing up the name "Perry Ross." A crude belligerent man who oversaw Mark Carriere's Leisure Time and was married to Teutonic blonde Angela Barron, Ross met his death in Amsterdam around 1992. His death was attributed to a heroin overdose. He was found naked and with a needle beside him. Insiders suspect that Ross was forcibly injected with strychnine. In other words, that Ross was murdered and that Geerts was behind it. Geerts is an enormous man, at least as obese as 400 pound director Thomas Paine. Geerts is widely feared. People worry that Geerts might send a hitman to my door armed with a silencer. Geerts may or may not have people murdered, but his peers regard him as someone with little respect for human life, as someone who would murder people for his amusement. Osil writes Luke: "I applaud you for having a certain amount of openess--i.e. printing e-mail that is critical of you. Yet, i'm troubled by your apparent lack of journalistic ethics. In the last several days you've charged a certain dutch gentleman [Charles Geerts] with murder. All based upon a hunch and a lack of a Dutch speaking friend. Free speech is a wonderful thing but we do have laws against yelling "fire " in a crowded theater which isn't, in fact, burning. Woodstein had to have a confirming source. Do some reporting before you accuse anyone of such a heinous crime." Former AVN writer Randy Kaplan writes Luke about his comments on Charles Geerts: "As one who understands the concept of lashon hara [evil speech], please do not be personally offended when I say that I regard you as someone with no respect for human life." Luke: "Yeah Randy, I don't have respect for child pornographers like Charles Geerts. Do you?" 6/18/99 Email: "I'd say these rumors about Private and drug trafficking are in the same categorie as the 'Rocco-has-aids' rumors. Where there's a lot of money and succes, there's these kind of rumors. I never heard anything at all connecting Private with drugs. It doesn't make sense also: this company is so incredibly rich, why would they want to become involved in something they could lose everything with? They litterally swim in money. "Charlie Geerts' media representative Hans Knoop is a former reknown investigative reporter (of Jewish descent) who had his finest hour in Holland in the late seventees, when he traced down an infamous Dutch collaborator with the occupying German forces back in WWII. His name was Pieter Menten, I believe he had an SS-rank, and the case was BIG news throuhout Europe at the time. Menten was convicted, his villa burned down, a he had to turn over his extensive art collection which was robbed from his victims. "Re. Charles: here's some info from an old (1-25-95) newspaper article in De Telegraaf, Holland's biggest newspaper. Charles was arrested in 1994 for tax-evading and fraude after an extensive investigation (codename 'Halt') from the FIOD, the Dutch IRS. His bail was set at 1 million guilders, which his laywer promptly paid - in cash. The Fiod suspected Charles, who at the time still was the director/owner of Scala Agenturen BV, of deliberately falsifying the invoices of video sales and copyright sales and of falsifiyng his income tax papers. Charles at the time was befriended to Klaas Bruinsma, one of Holland's most notorious mafia-leaders who was later shot and killed in Amsterdam. Also he admits to still being befriended to notorious Ettienne Urka, the former sidekick of Bruinsma who is probably Holland's most notorious 'gangster' now. Charles was arrested in LA in '85 for illegally importing porn, the case was later dismissed, as you probably know. The case against Charles by the FIOD was later settled out of court with the tax office. I believe Charles had to pay 20 million guilders to settle the score. The last couple of years he's in the estate business." A source: "There are some false articles in the Dutch press about Charles Geerts , especially from crime-reporter Bart Middelburg in het Parool, that he, Geerts, is a member of the mafia, that he is the Godfather of the Dutch crime-world, et cetera. The thruth is that Geerts was the biggist porno-trader in Europa and build an gigantic porno-imperium (Scala). For some people that is a crime perhaps. I see him as an great entrepreneur with an unusual way of doing business, but in no way he is a criminal. There was never any proof in that direction. That is just one of the myths surrounding him. Reporter Bert Voskuil from de Nieuwe Revu, a respectable weekly magazine in Amsterdam, wrote a very good and objective article about Mr. Geerts, who he accompanied during a businesstrip to German. Did you know that Geerts is a knight in the ancient Order of the Holy Archangel Michael and the Prophet Elijah (Order of the Templers)? He was knighted in 1970 by His Holiness monseigneur Mar Serapion, the arch-bishop of the Eastern-Orthodox Church in Holland and Belgium. Also present was HH Mgr. Brairley, the arch-bishop of the Old Roman-Catholic Church of England." May 11, 1992 Independent MOST Dutch newspapers paid scant attention to the murder last month of a 19-year-old man in the town of Ermelo. Only the Amsterdam daily, Het Parool, recognised there might be more to the story. It reported that the man may have been gunned down because he was mistaken for a former associate of the Dutch crime baron, Klaas Bruinsma. The killing has re-focused attention on two previous murders: that of Bruinsma last year and that of his aide, Roy Francis Atkins, originally from London, in 1990. A former policeman has been arrested for the killing and is due to go on trial. Bruinsma was not well known outside the Netherlands but it is estimated that his operations were comparable in size to those of Howard Marks, the British trafficker serving a prison sentence in the United States. The story of of Bruinsma's crime syndicate is revealing, because it lays bare another artery in the violent and complex network of international narcotics trafficking. With the world's largest harbour in Rotterdam, the Netherlands is considered to be a key ''transit country'' for narcotics coming from Pakistan and the Middle East into Europe. Most of the drugs will not remain in the Netherlands long because a far greater profit can be made selling them in Britain, Sweden and elsewhere in Europe, investigators say. ''In London a kilo of hash is worth pounds 2,000, twice or three times as much as the street value in Amsterdam,'' said an official of the Central Detective Information Service (CRI), a government agency specialising in analysing crime. Bruinsma - known locally as the Preacher - reportedly became the world's number one hashish smuggler when Howard Marks was arrested in Spain in 1988. Bruinsma and Marks had a number of similarities. Both had the angelic good looks of over-aged schoolboys. Both were the linchpins of organisations moving millions of pounds of narcotics around the world. But there the likeness ends. While Marks ran a non-violent operation, Bruinsma was known as a particularly nasty customer who had personally killed at least one drug dealer and was suspected of ordering the murders of a number of other rivals. Some time in the late 1970s, Bruinsma had joined forces with Roy Atkins, a gangster with a wide circle of contacts in the British underworld. Atkins had proved to be an elusive figure to British police, according to Dutch press reports. While he was suspected of deep involvement in narcotics trafficking, it was difficult to build a case against him because he ran his operations from abroad, first from Spain, then Holland. With the help of Atkins, Bruinsma began building an efficient network for smuggling cannabis from Pakistan into the Netherlands. He set up phoney businesses in Pakistan which shipped the narcotics concealed in containers of textiles and souvenirs. Much of the cannabis was sent on to the United Kingdom secreted in cars brought in on the cross-channel ferry. Bruinsma and Atkins preferred to divide the narcotics among a number of small vehicles rather than risk losing the whole shipment by sending it in a single container. Though Bruinsma and Marks were working in close proximity to each other, it appears their operations did not overlap, except at low levels. In 1990 Bruinsma and Atkins became involved in an ambitious scheme to import 45,000kg of black Pakistani hash into the country. But the entire haul, with a street value in the Netherlands of 450m guilders (about pounds 135m) was seized by Dutch police in the town of Leusden. It remains Europe's biggest drugs seizure. Atkins and Bruinsma subsequently quarrelled in Amsterdam's famous sex club, Yab Yum. Shots were fired but nobody was injured. When the police arrived, nobody was talking. Then in September 1990, in front of a roomful of tourists and locals, Atkins was shot dead in Amsterdam's popular Nightwatch bar. The two gunmen then disappeared and have never been identified. Bruinsma is believed by some to have put out a contract on Atkins. Another theory, as reported by a British newspaper, is that Spanish police believe Atkins was behind the murder in 1990 of the Great Train Robber, Charlie Wilson, because Wilson gave ''permission'' to another drug dealer to name Atkins to British police. The Preacher, Bruinsma, was assassinated last June in front of Amsterdam's Hilton Hotel shortly after another of his former colleagues was killed. Accounts in the Dutch Press indicated that the Preacher, who was then the subject of intense police scrutiny, had become a liability to his own organisation and was eliminated by one of his associates. The police have refused to comment on the murders, saying the cases are still under investigation. Though Atkins and Bruinsma are dead and other of their associates are now in jail, the flow of drugs through the Netherlands seems to be continuing unabated. Figures released by the CRI show that 74,000kg of hashish was confiscated in the country last year. How much more got through the police net is not known but the figure is believed to be many times greater. At least two of Bruinsma's former partners are said to have taken over some of his empire and other traffickers have moved in. One police officer described drug trafficking through the Netherlands today as ''business as usual''. Independent 10/22/94 The Independent has established separately that the Dutch gang, known as the Urka organisation after its leader, Etienne Urka, has also been implicated in smuggling automatic weapons and more than 100 kilos of Semtex. The organisation has still not been broken up despite evidence that it made millions of pounds importing more cannabis into the Netherlands than is smoked there annually. Much of the surplus ended up in Britain, with the knowledge of the Dutch anti- drugs police, but British Customs and police were never alerted, the book alleges. The now discredited Dutch police unit feared that tipping off its British colleagues would interfere with an investigation into an international drugs syndicate which has operated with impunity in the Netherlands for many years. British Customs have launched an investigation into the allegations but have denied knowledge of any unauthorised shipments being made with the knowledge of the Dutch authorities. ''We do a great deal of work in co- operation with the Dutch authorities,'' a spokesman said. ''It is all formally approved and run according to strict procedures and guidelines. We are not aware at present of any operations conducted outside these parameters.'' The Dutch police intelligence unit, known as the Interregional Recherche Team (IRT), was broken up last year when it became known that it had allowed an associate of the Urka organisation to import 40 tons of cannabis from Colombia and turned a blind eye to gangs manufacturing and selling ecstasy and amphetamines. Bart Middelburg, the co- author of Operation Delta, also alleges that the IRT secretly assisted the Dutch drugs gang by setting up a dummy company and warehousing facilities in Amsterdam. The police failed to penetrate the organisation or make charges against Etienne Urka stick despite two years of undercover observation by a task force of 100 officers. When details of the ''protected deliveries'' of drugs emerged last year, the Dutch justice and interior ministers resigned and the IRT unit was disbanded. 6/5/01 Michael translates this March 19, 2001 article: AMSTERDAM - Notaries normally aren't able to lose the boring image of their profession, but the Amsterdammer Ernst Olof Faber (54) has done just that. His notary firm Faber, De Jong & Blom in the Minervalaan has been for years a focus point of transactions police and the judiciary who would mark the firm as very suspicious, and often as ordinary as money laundering. The regular clientel of Faber, De Jong & Blom over the last 15 years has included mob boss Klaas Bruinsma (murdered), his lawyer John Engelsma (barred), Etienne Urka (Bruinsma's previous right hand man), sex boss 'Fat Charles' Geerts, henchmen of the criminal organization of Sam Klepper (murdered last year), real estate man Ronnie Ondunk (murdered) and the Amsterdam civil servant Tonnie van E. (recently put on non-active by the city council because of money laundering pending his dismissal). Mr. Ernst Olof Faber has a long history of unusual transactions. In 1989 Faber helped mob boss Bruinsma reorganize his real estate holdings. Mid 1989 Engelsma and Urka amongst others bought a housing complex for 2 million guilders in South Amsterdam. A year they sold the economic property for 3.8 million guilders to Heral, at that time a company belonging to - amongst others - sex boss 'fat Charles' Geerts. Then afterwards again with official documents made at Faber's office, they sold the judicial ownership to a company belonging to Geerts.
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