Top executives of bankrupt airline convicted in drug money laundering case

The Associated Press
Thursday, December 7, 2006
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands

A Dutch court ruled Thursday that the former top executives of a Dutch airline sought investments from drug smugglers for their financially distressed company and sentenced them to up to three years in prison.

The Rotterdam District Court said Air Holland Chief Financial Officer Paul Gruythuysen was the financial brain behind a criminal gang that laundered as much as €35 million (US$46 million), using some of it to finance the company's loss-making operations. He was given a three-year sentence.

The airline, which flew from the Netherlands to several Caribbean destinations, went bankrupt in March 2004.

Prosecutors said Gruythuysen personally delivered large sums of cash to contacts in Europe, including a diplomat from the Dominican Republic, from whom British authorities seized €6 million ($8 million) in cash. That man, whose name was not released, received diplomatic immunity and was not prosecuted.

Another contact, identified as Ghaudanand G., was sentenced to 28 months.

Air Holland's former chief executive, Cees van Dormael, who joined the company when it was already in financial trouble in 2001, was found not to have been part of the criminal ring. But he was judged to have been aware of its existence and was jailed for 18 months.

"In his desire to attract financing, he found refuge in millions of (euros) of criminal money," the ruling said of Van Dormael.

Dutch news magazine Elsevier reported both men planned to appeal.

"I'm still convinced I didn't do anything criminal," Elsevier quoted Gruythuysen saying. "I know for myself I didn't do it. Never intentionally."

Prosecutors said a pair of brothers identified by the court as Piet G. and Iwan G. invested drug money in the scheme. Piet was sentenced to one year prison, but he already is serving five years for cocaine smuggling. Iwan is serving an eight-year sentence in Brazil for attempting to smuggle 50,000 Ecstasy pills.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/07/europe/EU_GEN_Netherlands_Executives_Convicted.php