Knokke-Heist

Knokke-Heist was a Belgian coastal municipality in West Flanders that featured prominently in the X-Dossier as a location where child prostitution networks operated during the 1970s and 1980s. Witness X1 (Regina Louf) testified she was prostituted by her grandmother Cecile Beernaert at a hotel-villa located at Elizabetlaan 83 in Knokke-Heist, on the boundary of the Royal Zoute Golf Club. The golf club had been established by Count Maurice Auguste Lippens and its custodianship remained within the Lippens family through Count Leopold Lippens, who served as Mayor of Knokke-Heist. X1 identified clients at the villa including Paul Vanden Boeynants, Maurice Lippens, and Jean-Michel Nihoul.¹

Testimonies from X1 and her two childhood friends, along with X4, suggested families in Knokke-Heist were selling their children into a child prostitution ring during this period. The area around the golf club was identified as a venue for both the initial prostitution of children and later sadomasochist sex parties attended by Belgium's political and business elite.¹