With the news of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and the probable implication of many other rich and powerful Americans, I’m reminded of why I’ve always found the decades of these rumors completely believable—the “Dutroux incident” in Belgium.
Marc Dutroux is a career criminal, multiple murderer, and serial rapist/pedophile who was convicted of abducting and sexually assaulting several young girls in the 1980s, but was released after only 3 years in prison.
He went on to reoffend almost immediately, keeping captured teenagers in his basement until they starved to death and even killing one of his own business associates.
The notable aspects of this case that make it unusual in comparison to the average serial-killer-type tale are Dutroux’s high-level connections to the upper tiers of Belgian society and the notable “incompetence” involved with the investigation.
For example, at one point, police actually inspected Dutroux’s home, HEARD the screaming of the starving young women in his basement, and appeared to decide they had simply “come from elsewhere.”
They also seized videotapes that depicted Dutroux building the cell in his basement, but never even viewed the tapes, and then RETURNED them.
It is certain that children died due to this unforgivable police work, but it’s also quite likely that this was something more sinister than mere incompetence.
Dutroux, it transpired during trial, was involved with pedophile/trafficking rings which implicated vast swathes of the Belgian govt., police, and civil service.
Once actual victims of said rings began coming out and offering to testify to support Dutroux’s claim of a much vaster criminal conspiracy, the investigation seemed to be hamstrung at every turn. Key evidence was “lost,” over TWENTY witnesses or potential witnesses died under unclear or mysterious circumstances, and the well-liked, crusading judge in charge of investigation was abruptly fired for conflict of interest on the grounds that he had attended a fundraising dinner for the families of the murdered girls.
His replacement dismissed much evidence as irrelevant or incorrect, and in fact a counterinvestigation was even launched against the original judge, who eventually testified that he was forced to travel under armed guard and that contracts had been taken out on his head.
The victims, too, were subjected to a relentless campaign of smears, threats, psychological pressure, and dismissals—such that nearly all of them, even when supposedly protected by anonymity, withdrew their testimony.
In the end Regina Louf was one of the few victims of the ring who did not withdraw her testimony. Instead, the police dismissed it.
Dutroux’s co-defendant, Michel Nihoul, was a high-profile businessman whose involvement in these “sex parties”—widely alleged to include torture and even murder of young children—seemed to have been an open secret.
Dutroux claimed to have kidnapped young girls “to order” for Nihoul—who, as a mover and shaker in Belgian society, was acquitted of conspiracy and trafficking charges, and only served a small sentence for selling drugs. He is a free man today.
In an interesting coincidence, during this same time period, Belgium also saw the rise of the Brabant Killers, a bizarre gang of thugs who committed mass shootings and armed robberies throughout the 1980s, resulting in the death of nearly 30 people. Much evidence points to this gang having heavy links with (indeed, if not being COMPOSED of) the Belgian gendarmerie, some of whom themselves (such as openly fascist policeman Madani Bouhouche) were members of neo-Nazi organizations and linked with Belgium’s version of Operation GLADIO. Throughout his trial, which began 8 years after his first arrest and ended in a sentence of life imprisonment, Dutroux continued to insist on the existence of the pedophile ring and its penetration into the highest levels of Belgian politics, civil service.