Sywert van Lienden and his partners earned with their company not only from the sale of mouth caps to the government, but also from the sale of mouth caps and rapid tests to healthcare institutions and business customers. That writes Follow the Money (FTM).
These customers were convinced that they were going to work with the Auxiliary Alliance Foundation, a non-profit foundation. Specialized lawyers tell the journalistic research platform that there may have been fraud.
Healthcare heroes
According to FTM, these customers were led into the illusion that Van Lienden and his partners were not making a profit. For example, quotations would have been drawn up with the logo of the foundation and with the slogan ‘Help voor care heroen’. The telephone number and e-mail address on invoices also referred to the foundation.
“That’s how you thrive, yes,” a manager of a Christian care institution told FTM. He bought almost 40,000 mouth caps from the foundation, but received the bill from the bv.
Only a handful of employees of the foundation knew that some invoices were put in the name of the BV, says one of the four former employees of the Auxiliary Forces Alliance with whom FTM spoke.
profit
The employees say that “certainly hundreds and probably more than a thousand” orders have been invoiced at the BV. They remain anonymous because they have signed a nondisclosure agreement.
It is unclear how much profit this has generated for the BV and its shareholders. FTM writes that it may have brought in several million in extra turnover, on top of the 100.8 million euros that the sale of the mouth caps yielded to the government.
Van Lienden and his partners declined to respond to questions from FTM.
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