Public Prosecution Service demands prison sentence and professional ban against suspect for fraud involving own body material of newborns

News report | 27-01-2026 | 17:03

According to the Public Prosecution Service, the suspect persuaded parents to pay for the storage of own body material of their (newborn) children. He falsely led victims to believe that stem cells in that material could potentially be used in the future for treating serious diseases. “We can all probably imagine how much value and hope the donors attached to the storage of that tissue.”

The suspect presented himself as a recognized and certified tissue institution for the storage and processing of own body material. On the company’s websites, he wrongly gave the impression that he was affiliated with quality marks. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the suspect induced parents of newborn children to donate umbilical cord blood, (a part of) the umbilical cord itself, and milk teeth.

The public prosecutor today: “From the reports and victim statements, it appears that many new parents decided to donate because there were loved ones in their immediate environment who had serious hereditary diseases or had died from them. The donation was an insurance, a hope in case something would go wrong with their children.”

The victims paid the suspect under the assumption that they were dealing with a legitimate and certified company, and that the tissue of newborns could later be useful in medical procedures by extracting stem cells.

However, in 2014 the suspect withdrew his application for recognition with the necessary authorities. This was prompted by the Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) clearly stating that the suspect lacked the expertise, safety, and quality to properly operate a tissue institution.

Despite this, the suspect continued - in his communication with clients and on websites - to give the impression that he was fully recognized and certified. The website looked professional, and the suspect gave the impression that a whole team was ready for clients. The fact that the suspect misled responsible authorities with bad intentions is taken very seriously by the Public Prosecution Service.

Because administrative enforcement was not possible, a criminal investigation was initiated in 2019. In 2020, the suspect was internationally flagged. In 2023, after arrest, the investigation continued and body material was seized.

At the hearing, the public prosecutor extensively addressed the impact of the suspect’s actions on his victims: “The hope was that with new medical insights, their own stem cells could be used for treatments against serious diseases. The motivation for this lay with some victims in very personal and intense family circumstances. One victim lost a child to a rare DNA mutation. Her other son has the same condition. Another victim lost a sister to cancer during her pregnancy. For victims, there will always be uncertainty whether, if the need arose, the tissue with stem cells could have led to life-saving treatment.”

The Public Prosecution Service concluded the motivation for the sentence demand before the court in Arnhem with a message to society: “It must be clear to everyone that you cannot just start a company promising complex medical treatments without having the right expertise and organization.”

The seized body material could not be returned to the victims due to defects in administration and storage by the suspect. Some tubes were broken, some were not labeled, and some could no longer be traced back to the suspect’s clients. Combined with poor administration and cooperation from the suspect, these circumstances led to the entire collection of body material being declared unreliable. “It could no longer be said with any certainty that what was on the label was actually in the tube. This uncertainty led the Public Prosecution Service to decide that the risk of mix-up was so great that return was impossible. After extensive consultation, it was also decided to destroy the material,” according to the Public Prosecution Service.