### Overview The HIK Investigation, officially known as "De Handel In Kinderen" (The Trade in Children), was a Dutch police investigation launched in September 1994 in response to the disappearance of 12-year-old German boy [[Manuel Schadwald]]. The investigation focused on [[Lothar Glandorf]], a German child trafficker operating boy brothels in Rotterdam, and revealed connections between child trafficking networks and senior Dutch government officials.[^1] ### Background and Initiation The investigation was triggered when German authorities relayed information to Dutch police about three teenagers who had come forward complaining they had been trafficked into the Rotterdam sex trade. The teenagers reported that they had been prostituting themselves on the streets of Hamburg when approached by two Dutchmen who offered them large sums of money to travel to Rotterdam to film pornography. Upon arrival, their passports were seized, and they were forced to pay off exorbitant travel costs by working in a brothel owned by [[Lothar Glandorf]].[^2] While working in the brothel, the teenagers met a boy who identified himself as [[Manuel Schadwald]], matching the age and description of a boy they had seen on missing persons posters in Germany. A third teenager from Berlin later provided a similar story, confirming he had been taken to Rotterdam and forced to work in Glandorf's brothel, where he also identified [[Manuel Schadwald]].[^2] ### Investigation Methods and Evidence Collection Dutch authorities responded by forming a task force and implementing sophisticated investigative techniques. A wiretap was placed on Glandorf's phone, and a surveillance team was assigned to monitor his movements. The wiretaps captured incriminating conversations that revealed the systematic nature of his criminal enterprise and his VIP clientele.[^1] The investigation discovered that Glandorf was smuggling boys from Eastern Europe into his Rotterdam brothels, Euro Boys and Young Boys, where he would then pimp them out to VIP clients of his escort service and to child pornographers.[^1] ### The Surveillance Controversy One of the most disturbing aspects of the HIK investigation was the behavior of the surveillance team assigned to monitor Glandorf. Members of this team observed Glandorf in the company of a boy they identified as [[Manuel Schadwald]] but inexplicably took no action. Their observation was never reported to German authorities and was deliberately omitted from the final HIK report compiled on their investigation.[^2] This failure to act was only discovered when the raw surveillance logs were examined as auxiliary documents included with the final report. The logs clearly recorded the sighting of Schadwald with Glandorf, suggesting that someone within the investigation deliberately suppressed this critical information.[^2] ### Wiretap Evidence of Government Involvement The wiretap evidence collected during the investigation revealed damning information about Glandorf's connections to senior Dutch government officials. In one recorded conversation, a senior Dutch government official with the first name "Joris" called Glandorf from Poland asking his advice on how best to smuggle a boy across the Dutch border. In another conversation, "Joris" asked Glandorf whether any new boys were available for sex and mentioned that the last one had had an STD.[^3] Glandorf provided specific instructions to the official: "When you get to the bridge at the border, let him out so he can go on foot so they can't catch you."[^3] ### Identity of "Joris" and Government Connections There was significant contention over the identity of "Joris" mentioned in the wiretap transcripts. According to researcher Joel van der Reijden, the official in question was Joris Francken, a bureaucrat who worked in the Ministry for Health under Minister for Health Els Borst. Borst would later serve as Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 1998-2002 and was found murdered in her garage in February 2014.[^4] The other suspected "Joris" was [[Joris Demmink]], the former Secretary General of the Ministry of Justice of the Netherlands. Demmink resigned from his position in 2012 around the same time the U.S. Helsinki Commission began an inquiry into his connection to a 1997 investigation into an Amsterdam callboy service catering to Dutch Justice officials, a case known as the [[Rolodex Investigation]].[^4] ### Investigation Outcomes In November 1995, [[Lothar Glandorf]] was convicted and sentenced to prison for his role in child trafficking and prostitution. However, the investigation into his operation received renewed attention in 1998 when details of the classified HIK report were aired by the Dutch TV news network NCRV.[^1] ### Connections to Other Investigations The HIK investigation was one of three major interlinked investigations into child trafficking networks in the Netherlands during the 1990s. Along with [[Operation Framework]] (1992-93) and the [[Rolodex Investigation]] (1997-98), the HIK case revealed a pattern of sophisticated trafficking operations that exploited legal jurisdictional boundaries and enjoyed protection from powerful individuals.[^5] ### Footnotes [^1]: 'When sex abuse can lead to murder', The Guardian, November 27 2000; Dutch police investigation files on HIK case, 1994-1995 [^2]: 'Paedophile network trafficks young boys across Europe', Nick Davies, Previously unpublished, October 1 1998; HIK investigation surveillance logs, 1994 [^3]: Wiretap transcripts from HIK investigation, 1994; 'When sex abuse can lead to murder', The Guardian, November 27 2000 [^4]: 'Dutch Joris Demmink Affair Reveals Heroin, Cocaine and Pedophile Entrapment Affairs', ISGP-Studies, October 31 2014; Dutch media reports on Els Borst murder, February 2014 [^5]: Summary of interlinked Netherlands investigations, 1992-1998; Dutch police investigation files and media reports