The arrangement was described in an article in Dagblad van het Noorden on Saturday. Trustee Pieter Lettinga at Dorhout Advocaten, who is investigating Mennes & Jager’s liquidation, confirms to the UK that former employees at Mennes & Jager told him that Hans G.’s son and daughter-in-law were on the payroll. ‘But I haven’t been able to determine that for myself. At the time of the liquidation, they were not employed at Mennes & Jager. I don’t have any administration pertaining to staffing’, the trustee responds.

According to Dagblad van het Noorden, G. issued fake maintenance jobs at the university to Mennes & Jager. In doing so, the RUG paid his son and daughter-in-law’s ‘wages’. Any investigation into the fraudulent construction is hindered by the company’s missing bookkeeping. The company’s director claims that the laptop with the company’s bookkeeping on it was stolen from his car.

Remand

According to the Public Prosecution Service (OM), Hans G. is guilty of money laundering, forgery of documents and corruption of public servants. He has supposedly swindled the university out of hundreds of thousands of euros. G. has been employed at the university for 33 years. According to involved business owners, the scheme has been going on since the early ‘90s. The Public Prosecution Service’s investigation into the fraud at the RUG, however, will not go back further than 2008. However, due to the ongoing investigation, the judicial authorities will not say why that is the case.

Today, the judicial authorities asked the court in Almelo to extend G.’s remand. The Public Prosecution Service needs more time to conclude their investigation into the fraud. But the judge nullified the charges on the grounds that it was incomplete. A new pro forma hearing is scheduled for 10 May, the end of the term of remand.

‘He takes it seriously’

Hans G. himself was present at the hearing on Monday morning. According to defence counsel De Kruiff, the maintenance manager’s attorney, his client wants to show that he is taking the case seriously. ‘My client has almost reached the end of his working life. This is a drastic event taking place under exceptional conditions. It would be unusual if all of this were to have no impact on his life.’