The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(T-Z)/Gerrit-Jan Ulrich.md

category	aliases	tags	summary	location	start	created	updated	relations
Criminals & Offenders	Gerrit-Jan Ulrich Gerrit Jan Ulrich Gerrit Ulrich Gary Ulrich Gerrie Ulrich	BelgiumScandals Person Netherlands Italy Germany ChildPornography ApolloNetwork Murder Pisa	Gerrit-Jan Ulrich was a computer salesman who ran the Apollo Bulletin Board Service from Zandvoort and was shot in the Tuscan countryside near Pomarance, Italy, on June 19, 1998.	Zandvoort, Netherlands	1998-06-19	2026-04-28	2026-10-15	type with role start end fn head_of Apollo Bulletin Board Service administrator of the bulletin-board service 1998 1998-06-19 2 type with role end fn owned Cube Hardware computer store 1998-06-19 1 type with role end fn partner_of Robbie Van Der Plancken longtime partner (Hulse), partner (Der Spiegel) 1998-06-19 2 type with reverse start role fn investigated Marcel Vervloesem true 1998-06-09 met Ulrich in Zandvoort after tracing him from Amsterdam 2 type with reverse start role fn subject_of Robbie Van Der Plancken true 1999-07-30 Pisa prosecution of Van der Plancken for the killing of Ulrich, indicted July 1999, on trial November 1999 17

Gerrit-Jan Ulrich (died June 19, 1998) was a computer salesman who ran the Apollo Bulletin Board Service, a dial-up service that Dovey described as one of the world's largest online distributors of sadomasochistic child pornography in the mid-1990s, operated from his flat in Zandvoort, Netherlands.¹² He was shot in the countryside near Pomarance in the province of Pisa, Italy, on June 19, 1998, and his body was reported found in a forest near Pisa on June 20.³⁴⁵

Identity and business

Nick Davies described Ulrich as a Dutch businessman and a well-known customer on the Spuistraat in Amsterdam, where, Davies wrote, he was said to supply Robbie Van Der Plancken with security, affection and considerable sums of cash.³ Tim Hulse gave Ulrich's age as 49 and wrote that he was Van der Plancken's longtime lover.² La Repubblica called him a 50-year-old Dutch businessman in November 1999.⁶ Dovey wrote that Ulrich owned a computer store called Cube Hardware.¹ The 2022 parliamentary commission (Commissie Hendriks) described Ulrich as coming from Germany, and The Seattle Times called him a convicted German pedophile.⁷⁸

The Haarlem chief prosecutor, H. van Brummen, said in April 1999 that the investigation had concentrated on what was found in Ulrich's Zandvoort apartment and in his computer shop Cube Hardware, and that the Apollo user file held 60,000 different photographs, most of them so-called teen pornography. NRC Handelsblad reported that Ulrich's life companion was an accountant, by then deceased, and that no evidence was found for abuse aboard the sailing ship Apollo belonging to the companion.⁹

Waalre party and the Rotterdam connection

Hulse wrote that a 1992 police raid on a party at Waalre, where guests watched child pornography videos and had sex with minors, found Robbie Van Der Planken, Lothar Gandolf (the spelling Hulse used for Lothar Glandorf) and a man identified as Norbert DR from Temse; Hulse called Van der Planken a Dutchman.² Dovey wrote that Marcel Vervloesem found Glandorf's name in that 1992 police report, which recorded Glandorf's arrest in the company of a teenager, Van Der Plancken, and that Vervloesem tracked the teenager down in Amsterdam in June 1998 and questioned him about Manuel Schadwald during a television interview filmed by journalists of the Belgian broadcaster RTBF.¹ Davies wrote that Van der Plancken, a Belgian who grew up in Boom, had worked in Glandorf's brothels in Rotterdam.³

Meeting with Marcel Vervloesem

According to Hulse, Vervloesem, a Belgian who headed the Morkhoven Workgroup (called the Morkhoven Action Group in Hulse), met Van der Plancken in Amsterdam on June 9, 1998, while searching for a boy who had disappeared in Berlin in 1993, Manuel Schadwald.² Other members of the group watched the meeting, noticed a stranger photographing it, and followed him to Zandvoort.¹² Two days later Ulrich telephoned Vervloesem late at night and invited him to his flat.² Hulse wrote that five computers in the flat were connected to phone lines, that Ulrich ran a bulletin-board service called Apollo, and that Ulrich apparently told Vervloesem he was at the centre of an international child pornography network.² The flat was also described as holding multiple running computers connected to five phone lines, with digital storage disks and networking equipment throughout, and the service as using encryption and access controls to admit only verified, paying members from around the world.¹⁰ Hulse wrote that Ulrich gave Vervloesem a disk containing 9,000 pictures, together with disks listing customers' names and bank details.²

Dovey wrote that, according to Vervloesem, Ulrich feared for his life and sought protection against the network whose material he distributed.¹ Hulse wrote that Ulrich was suffering from Aids and had only months to live, and that Vervloesem believed he wanted to leave the network.² Dovey wrote that Ulrich claimed to have heart disease and not long to live, and that a neighbor later said the same.¹

Hulse also reported that Vervloesem had been convicted of extortion by the court in Dendermonde in April 1998 and sentenced to two years in prison, and that Vervloesem's detractors believed his claims were meant to help his appeal.²

Flight, telephone call and death

Hulse wrote that Ulrich telephoned Vervloesem from Lyon, where he and Van der Plancken had stopped on a motorbike en route to Italy, and that Ulrich said he would give Vervloesem more material when he returned to the Netherlands, from a hidden store under the floorboards of his living room.² Dovey wrote that on that call Ulrich said he was frightened and did not have long to live.¹ Davies reported that Van der Plancken had left the Netherlands for a holiday a few weeks after an anonymous television interview, travelling with Ulrich to France and Italy.³

L'Unità reported on July 17, 1998 that Ulrich was found dying on June 19 beside a road in the Val di Cecina near Pomarance, that he was first taken for the victim of a motorcycle accident, and that he had in fact been fatally wounded by a pistol shot to the throat, fired, it appeared, by his travelling companion, who was held in Pisa. The paper added that Van der Plancken was said to have told investigators the shot went off in play, whereas the private detectives working for Morkhoven held that Ulrich was killed because he had repented and begun to reveal the secrets of the network; Vervloesem told Dutch television that Ulrich had talked too much.⁴ A database of that year's homicides described the weapon as a collector's replica of a muzzle-loading pistol and the place as the countryside between Pomarance and Montecerboli.⁵ The Corriere della Sera headline for June 20 read "Pisa, turista olandese uccide amico" (Pisa, Dutch tourist kills friend).¹¹

Davies wrote that Ulrich's body was found on Saturday, June 20, in a forest near Pisa, that Van der Plancken was arrested, first denied knowledge of the death, and then said he had shot Ulrich and that it was an accident.³ Hulse described him as the chief suspect held by Italian police.² Hulse wrote that Ulrich had been shot several times, and the killing was also described as appearing to have been professionally executed.²¹² La Repubblica of July 18, 1998 called him the presumed killer and gave his name as "Robert van den Planc"; L'Unità gave it as Roger van der Plancken.⁴¹³ Hulse and Davies gave his age as 23, the Seattle Times and Il Tirreno as 24, and Repubblica in 1999 as 25.²³⁶⁸¹⁴ Der Spiegel reported in August 1998 that he was in Italian custody on suspicion of having shot his partner, Ulrich.¹⁵ The Seattle Times reported that the shooting was alleged to have been carried out by a rival gang member, and that Dutch authorities were seeking the suspect's extradition.⁸

Italian proceedings

Il Tirreno ran the headline on July 25, 1998 that the version of an accident was beginning to waver after eight hours before the judge in Pisa, and asked whether Van der Plancken had admitted that Ulrich was blackmailing him.¹⁴ On July 30, 1998 it reported that the man interrogated in Pisa in the Internet pedophile inquiry was said to have named accomplices, and that the Netherlands was requesting his extradition.¹⁶ A year later, on July 30, 1999, the paper headlined the indictment of Van der Plancken for voluntary homicide with the statement that Ulrich was killed because he was about to confess, quoting him as saying "I no longer want to rape those children", and that his accomplice shot him; the report gave the opening of the trial as November 2.¹⁷

Franca Selvatici wrote in Repubblica on November 5, 1999 that Van der Plancken, 25, a Belgian, was on trial for murder in Pisa, that he called the killing an accident, and that several witnesses, including his father, said it was deliberate. His defence lawyer was Giangualberto Pepi, and the Pisa prosecutor was Angelo Perrone. According to the same report, Henk van Brummen, the Haarlem prosecutor, who was in Pisa to follow the trial, had just dropped the charge that Van der Plancken took part in the child-abuse-material trade run by Ulrich, of which about 70,000 images were found in Ulrich's Zandvoort home. Perrone gave van Brummen a statement dated June 15, 1999 from a former cellmate of Van der Plancken, who said that Van der Plancken, code-named "Lupetto", had described the network to him in Pisa prison, as well as trips with Ulrich to Morocco to obtain children, and had named a British rock star; van Brummen was to decide on new inquiries. Van der Plancken denied the account and announced a slander complaint. His father told the paper he had seen a film of Van der Plancken with a child kidnapped in Germany who was later found killed; Van der Plancken said the film did not exist.⁶

Dutch police searches and the disks

Hulse wrote that Dutch police informed the families of Ulrich and Van der Plancken of the death on June 22. On June 26 Ulrich's sister-in-law and a friend went to the flat, where a computer was running and the screen displayed an image of child pornography. On June 27 the two women returned with Vervloesem, forced the door, and were detained when police arrived, while Vervloesem fled. On June 28 police searched the flat and found computer records under the floorboards, including a list of 300 names which, Hulse wrote, "is said to amount to an international Who's Who of suspected paedophiles". The list included Warwick Spinks and Glandorf.²

Dovey wrote that a surveillance team was assigned to watch the flat after the death, that bags of child-sized clothing lay with the disks under the floorboard, and that Spinks's name was also found in an address book belonging to Van Der Plancken.¹ Dovey wrote that within a few days of the death Vervloesem was caught breaking in to retrieve the disks Ulrich had told him were hidden beneath a floorboard, and that these disks, with hundreds of others in the flat, held tens of thousands of images and videos showing extremely violent sexual abuse of children, including infants.¹ Dovey wrote that a child psychiatrist who inspected the material said he had never seen anything like it, describing pictures of sexual abuse, violence and the tying up of young children, among them children aged four to five, eight to nine, and one about eighteen months.¹¹⁸ Davies wrote that several days after the death, at the request of the Italians, Dutch police went to Ulrich's home in Zandvoort and found computer disks and CDs holding pornographic images of children, sixty thousand in total.³ The 2022 commission wrote that the Kennemerland police found more than 60,000 pornographic images, several hundred of them of children averaging between ten and twelve years old, and named the Reformatorisch Dagblad of July 17, 1998 as its source for that sentence.⁷

Repubblica reported on July 17, 1998 that armed Dutch special agents raided a seafront flat in Zandvoort on the morning of Wednesday, July 15, arresting one man and two women who were, according to Dutch media, trying to destroy evidence, and that the gang was reported also to have a base in Italy. German tabloids, it added, said the inquiry began with the killing in Italy of a Dutchman "G. Ullrich" and the detention of "R.v.d.P."; investigators were examining possible contacts with Warwick Spinks and an accomplice, "Edward", arrested at Hoofddorp. The paper said Morkhoven had been contacted by a gang member who supplied disks and photographs and who "would shortly after have been killed in Italy".¹⁹ The next day it reported that the Dutch seizure of video material had taken place two days earlier.¹³ The Seattle Times described the raid as taking place in mid-July.⁸ Der Spiegel wrote that the Zandvoort case was connected with arrests at Neuwied and Hamburg.¹⁵

Hulse reported that German police said the pictures they had seen were several years old. He quoted the Het Nieuwsblad reporter Marc Helsen, who said some specialists dated the material to about ten years earlier and that it had been copied repeatedly.²

Dutch television and the Berlin inquiry

The Dutch programme NOVA, whose journalists Eric van der Swam and Carolien Brugsma worked on the story, broadcast it on the evening of July 16, 1998 after interviewing Morkhoven workers; a spokeswoman said the pictures in the broadcaster's possession were too shocking to show. L'Unità reported that a psychiatrist who viewed the material told Dutch television news he had never seen such frightening images, and that Vervloesem put the youngest children at 12 to 15 months of age and said address lists held names of pedophiles in the United States, Israel, Russia and Germany. The Berliner Morgenpost linked the case to the disappearance of a 12-year-old boy in Berlin in July 1993, Manuel Schadwald; the Berlin prosecutor's office said it had opened no inquiry into links between the Netherlands and Germany, and the German justice ministry said there was no Berlin trail.⁴ The Belgian gendarmerie told Repubblica that the missing Berlin boy was not among the 340 faces in the Belgian and Dutch videos.¹³

Morkhoven material and the Dutch parliament

On July 18 Repubblica reported that the Morkhoven group held thousands of pornographic documents found in Ulrich's Dutch house. Its spokesman said the Belgian and Dutch files showed the same names and linked the network to branches in the Philippines and Eastern European countries.¹³ The commission wrote that the group had handed more than 90,000 images to Interpol, and that NOVA had received material through the group.⁷

On September 22, 1998 the chairman of the Werkgroep Morkhoven wrote to the Eerste Kamer about the child pornography network in Zandvoort. The Chamber listed the letter as of interest to members of its Justice and Development Cooperation committees.²⁰

Dovey wrote that Ulrich had handed Vervloesem encoded disks, and that Vervloesem distrusted the Dutch authorities and passed a set of the disks to a colleague in the group, Gina Pardaens-Bernaer, who made copies before the material went to police.¹ Dovey wrote that Pardaens-Bernaer identified a perpetrator linked to the Marc Dutroux network in material from the Apollo disks, and that she died on November 15, 1998, when her car struck a bridge pillar. Dovey also wrote that her death was ruled a suicide.¹

Official findings of 1999 and 2022

On April 26, 1999, after a year's investigation by 38 detectives, van Brummen announced that no evidence existed of an international organisation of child-pornography producers run from Zandvoort. NRC Handelsblad reported his figures: 710 child-pornographic images in Ulrich's apartment, of which most were years old; 1,600 seriously pornographic images on the disks supplied by Morkhoven, whose origin in Ulrich's collection he said could not be proven; 370 recognisable portraits of children and three offenders, entered in the national police bulletin without any child being traced; and 184 witnesses heard, among them Van der Plancken, then still in an Italian cell. Justice was, van Brummen said, 95 percent certain that Van der Plancken had not been involved in producing or distributing child pornography, and the extradition request was not yet withdrawn because of the remaining 5 percent. Van Brummen said that nothing showed Van der Plancken was involved in the 1993 disappearance of the German boy, as Morkhoven had alleged in 1998, that only a look-alike of the boy was found in the Amsterdam homosexual prostitution circuit, and that no evidence was found of child trafficking between Ulrich and notorious Belgian, German and English pedophiles.⁹

The 2022 commission wrote that because Ulrich died, prosecution and trial did not take place, and that cases linked to the Zandvoort material were dismissed for lack of evidence in several countries. The commission also noted that media reports linked the Zandvoort case to the network to which Dutroux belonged.⁷

Guardian report and Spinks

The Guardian reported on July 31, 1998 that Warwick Spinks's name had been found among details of child pornography customers in a police raid on Ulrich's Amsterdam flat, and that Spinks denied involvement.²¹ Dovey wrote that the Zandvoort operation was connected to the networks of Spinks and Glandorf, whom he described as major traffickers operating in the Netherlands, and that Van der Plancken worked with both men.¹ Davies reported that Van der Plancken claimed, in an unbroadcast section of his interview with Dutch television, that the boy taken from Berlin had been sold to Spinks in Amsterdam.³ Der Spiegel wrote that Van der Plancken appeared in at least five films of Gero-Video, the Düsseldorf distributor, whose owner said the films were bought in 1993 from a Dutch production company; investigators had found nothing punishable at the firm.¹⁵

Footnotes

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1. Dovey, S. Eye of the Chickenhawk. Thehotstar, 2023. ↩︎

2. Tim Hulse, "No kind of hero," The Independent, September 13, 1998. Hulse spells the name Lothar Gandolf in the article. ↩︎

3. Nick Davies, "Paedophile network traffics young boys across Europe," The Observer, dated October 1, 1998 and marked "Previously unpublished," https://www.nickdavies.net/1998/10/01/paedophile-network-trafficks-young-boys-across-europe/ ↩︎

4. "Gli abusi prenotati via Internet. In rete le immagini degli stupri," L'Unità, July 17, 1998, p. 13, https://archivio.unita.news/assets/derived/1998/07/17/issue_full.pdf ↩︎

5. Entry for June 19, 1998 (Pomarance and Montecerboli), Cinquantamila.it daily homicide record, https://www.cinquantamila.it/storyTellerGiorno.php?date=2001-02-26 ↩︎

6. Franca Selvatici, "Quella rockstar è un pedofilo," La Repubblica, November 5, 1999, p. 25, https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1999/11/05/quella-rockstar-un-pedofilo.html ↩︎

7. Tijdelijke Onderzoekscommissie Georganiseerd Sadistisch Misbruik van Minderjarigen (Commissie Hendriks), "Rechtszaken en aangiftes van georganiseerd sadistisch misbruik bij minderjarigen," December 21, 2022, Bijlage bij Kamerstuk 31015 nr. 265, p. 11 and notes 17 to 19, https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/blg-1067911.pdf ↩︎

8. "Internet child-porn scandal hits Holland," The Seattle Times, July 30, 1998, https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19980730/2763828/internet-child-porn-scandal-hits-holland ↩︎

9. Margriet Oostveen, "Kinderporno in Zandvoort was eenmansactie," NRC Handelsblad, April 27, 1999 (excerpted at https://www.tegenwicht.org/01_tw_hoezo/zantvoort.htm) ↩︎

10. Technical details of Apollo BBS operation and Ulrich's computer expertise; Dutch forensic analysis reports, 1998. ↩︎

11. "Pisa, turista olandese uccide amico," Corriere della Sera, June 20, 1998, http://archiviostorico.corriere.it/1998/giugno/20/Pisa_turista_olandese_uccide_amico_co_8_980620179.shtml ↩︎

12. Ulrich's flight to Italy and murder circumstances; Italian police reports and witness statements, June 1998. ↩︎

13. "Pedofilia, nuovo caso in Belgio 340 bambini nei video hard," La Repubblica, July 18, 1998, p. 14, https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1998/07/18/pedofilia-nuovo-caso-in-belgio-340-bambini.html ↩︎

14. "Un momento-chiave, ieri a Pisa, per il delitto di Pomarance. Comincia a vacillare la versione dell'incidente. Otto ore dal giudice, la verità di Robby," Il Tirreno, July 25, 1998, http://ricerca.gelocal.it/iltirreno/archivio/iltirreno/1998/07/25/LF301.html ↩︎

15. "Nur die kleinen Fische," Der Spiegel, no. 32, 1998, https://www.spiegel.de/politik/nur-die-kleinen-fische-a-fc226181-0002-0001-0000-000007956187 (referring to Der Spiegel no. 31, 1998, on Zandvoort). ↩︎

16. "Inchiesta pedofili via Internet, l'uomo interrogato a Pisa avrebbe fatto nomi di complici. L'Olanda chiede l'estradizione di Robby," Il Tirreno, July 30, 1998, https://ricerca.gelocal.it/iltirreno/archivio/iltirreno/1998/07/30/LF302.html ↩︎

17. "Il giallo della Valdicecina risolto con l'incriminazione di Robby Van der Plancken per omicidio volontario. Ucciso perché stava per confessare," Il Tirreno, July 30, 1999, http://ricerca.gelocal.it/iltirreno/archivio/iltirreno/1999/07/30/LA106.html ↩︎

18. Child psychiatrist's statement to Dutch police, 1998; Apollo disks evidence analysis. ↩︎

19. Andrea Tarquini, "Pedofili on line retata in Olanda," La Repubblica, July 17, 1998, p. 17, https://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/1998/07/17/pedofili-on-line-retata-in-olanda.html ↩︎

20. Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal, Handelingen 1998-1999, Lijst van ingekomen stukken, dinsdag 22 september 1998, griffienr. 118319.13, https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/h-ek-19981999-2-4.html ↩︎

21. Kate Connolly and Owen Bowcott, "Fugitive Briton linked to Dutch child porn hits at 'witch-hunt' from Prague refuge," The Guardian, July 31, 1998, page 15. ↩︎