CONSUL VAN VLOTEN: FROM PANCAKES TO PUTIN

Honorary consuls are figures that date back at least to the fall of the Western Roman Empire when Greece, China, India and Middle Eastern countries appointed foreign volunteers to expand trade. In more recent history they are elected to allow smaller countries, which cannot afford career diplomats, to deploy ‘bridge’ figures in important outposts across borders, useful to promote relations between their own country and the host country or to assist their local community, especially where it is complicated or too costly to maintain an embassy.

The 1963 Vienna Consular Convention[1] stipulates that a consul enjoys many of the privileges and protections of diplomats, such as the ability to transport luggage across a border without a customs agent being able to inspect it, or the ability to keep records and conduct confidential correspondence free from any possibility of inspection. In the preface, the signatories to the Convention declare themselves “convinced that these privileges and immunities are not intended to benefit individual persons, but to ensure the effective performance of duties by consular posts on behalf of their States”[2] .

Consuls are not diplomats, they do not deal with matters of law and politics. However, when a state does not have diplomatic agents working in a specific state, the consul exceptionally assumes certain diplomatic functions. The consul is not paid for the services he provides, but enjoys diplomatic immunity. A consul can therefore take on a strategic role, especially if he has the opportunity to count on a network of good friendships, although they must be careful: in addition to assuming morally irreproachable conduct, they are firmly required to be very discreet supporters, focused exclusively on cultural and economic ties, and are absolutely forbidden from proselytising the political opinions of the governments they represent: they must be ‘apolitical in word and deed’[3] .

The reality is different: today, according to ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists)[4] and ProPublica[5] , at least 500 honorary consuls are accused of crimes or are involved in major litigation – and of these more than 150 have been charged with or convicted of tax evasion, fraud, bribery, corruption or money laundering, nearly 60 are linked to drug or weapons offences, at least 20 to violent crimes and 10 to environmental abuses; 30 honorary consuls have been sanctioned by the US and other governments; nine are linked to terrorist groups by law enforcement and governments[6] . Immunity becomes a viaticum for illegality: according to US regulators, immunity ‘is a great way to handle dirty money because honorary consuls are generally not labelled as higher risk in a monitoring system and they get the advantage of not being subject to law enforcement searches’[7] .

The investigation links criminal or controversial consuls to at least 168 governments, including Russia, which exploited the system to enlist dozens of Kremlin supporters on foreign soil as a soft power strategy[8] . After the military crisis and the invasion of Crimea in 2014, Moscow organised these consuls as a secret trade network to deal (in defiance of possible sanctions) with the difficulties of supplying raw materials and mechanical parts in the event of a war: an assessment that has proven to be successful[9] . In general, these are people out of the limelight: many deliberately keep a rather low profile, to remain in the shadows. Until something breaks, perhaps because of stable orders or nationalist pride, and then they break the mould, thus earning themselves headlines.

From pancakes to the castle

Constantijn Van Vloten in his studio at his Belgian residence in Château de la Motte[10]

Pieter Henry Lodewijk Constantijn Van Vloten was born on 17 January 1952 in Maarssen, a small municipality in the province of Utrecht[11] . After his studies, he worked as a farmer for a couple of years[12] : ‘By myself, I milked 65 cows a day and worked about sixty hectares of land,’ he recounts[13] , but then he opened a bakery and started selling pizzas: his first hit was at the Pinkpop festival in Geelen, where he managed to sell no less than 17,000 in a single day – then he sold pancakes at the first Torhout-Erchter festival[14] .

He found his way: with the money he earned, he dived into catering and showed great entrepreneurial skills[15] . He went on to serve at the most important sites in the Netherlands, such as the motor racing tracks in Assen and Zandvoort, the ice stadium in Thialf, the amusement park in Duinrell, the archaeological museum in Archeon and the Royal Palace ‘Paleis Het Loo’ in Apeldoorn. Van Vloten recounts that during an event at the Paleis Het Loo in 1990, where an exhibition on the Tsars was held, he came into contact with the world of Russian museums for the first time: he made such a good impression on the patrons that he earned his first catering contract in the Russian Federation[16] .

With his VVM Group (Van Vloten Management Group[17] ), he quickly organised banquets and opened several self-service restaurants in the museums of St Petersburg[18] : in the Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, but also in the Hermitage and Catherine’s Palace (where he owns not only the licence, but also the bar[19] ) and Menshikov Palace, then in Pavlovsk[20] , and now employs more than 600 people[21] . The activities enjoy Putin’s personal approval, as they bring the atmosphere of Europe’s most famous bars and restaurants to Russia, and also serve to crystallise the first great private assets of the large cities of the newly formed Federation[22] .

At that time, Putin headed the Foreign Relations Committee of the St. Petersburg mayor’s office and personally signed the certificates for the new joint ventures[23] . In St. Petersburg, as well as meeting Prime Minister Medvedev – there are photos hanging on the walls of the Château de la Motte where Van Vloten poses by his side[24] , together with the woman who would become his wife, Nadjésda Petsonkina[25] . These were wild years, in which Putin (thanks to Intercommerz[26] ) and some KGB bigwigs hid millions of dollars abroad, mainly through Holland and Germany[27] , using a Cypriot company (Prevezon Holdings), the discovery of which triggered many criminal investigations throughout Europe and the United States[28] .

The number of companies involved is immense and will never be fully uncovered, but the system is always and only one: dozens of small Western operators open a myriad of business enterprises in Russia and, little by little, achieving success beyond the curtain, start transferring significant amounts of dividends to EU countries. This does not happen without consequences: one after the other, these European entrepreneurs are forced to relinquish ownership in Russia, which continues to transfer money man without the original business: a typical money laundering scheme, which becomes a key to the great financial success of Putin and the Russian oligarchs[29] . A scheme that started with the first Dutch entrepreneurs who landed in Moscow and St. Petersburg and enthusiastically lent their help to support the young Russian economy’s need for western currency[30] .

One of the covert Russian money transfer schemes uncovered by US law enforcement authorities[31]

The pattern is also repeated by Constantijn Van Vloten who, towards the end of the 1990s, after only a few years as a restaurateur, decides to change his life: in an interview, he recounts that he sold all his catering companies (which is denied by official documents[32] ) and then bought, with the proceeds, a very expensive seven-hectare estate in the Belgian Haspengouw, on which stands the Château de la Motte castle[33] . It is a building that is in a dramatic state of dilapidation but, with an investment of two million euro[34] , undergoes a thorough renovation: one part becomes a luxurious private residence, while the rest is converted into a reception facility for events, parties, seminars and accommodation[35] . Van Vloten moved there with his wife, while his Russian companies prospered under trusteeship[36] . Expenses of the operation: over EUR 10 million, for a company that invoiced less than EUR 1 million per year[37] .

Be that as it may, Van Vloten thus seems to have chosen a kind of ‘retreat’, away from everything and everyone to enjoy his old age with his wife, in a hermitage where he decides to continue his trade just to make enough money – he says – to cover maintenance costs, while he spends his time gardening. Everything has the appearance of a fairy tale – except for an unfortunate interlude in April 2012, when the castle is rented out for an event that attracts 700 people; however, it is no ordinary party, it is Eyes Wide Sins 2.0, an erotic masquerade party, ‘where all the masks will fall off at the stroke of midnight’; Van Vloten, defending himself against the media noise, states that he has no problem with the event ‘as long as it does not cause any disturbance and that no nonsense such as orgies take place inside the castle […] It can be carnivalesque, but it must remain decent’[38] . But the scandal in Holland is enormous.

From hermit to Honorary Consul

The façade of the Russian consulate in Maastricht defaced after Constantijn Van Vloten’s pro-Putin statements[39]

As in any self-respecting fairy tale, the apparent poor boy becomes a prince charming: in April 2014, Van Vloten, who already likes to call himself ‘baron’, was awarded the position of Honorary Consul of the Russian Federation of the provinces of Limburg and North Brabant[40] . He declares himself surprised, as well as honoured: ‘You are appointed by a number of people, but you don’t know who they are. The procedure lasted three years. I am the first consul in the Netherlands to join the Russian Federation, the largest country in the world. I am proud of that. The floor above La Bonbonnière, the theatre in the centre of Maastricht, became the seat of the consulate[41] , inaugurated in the presence of the Russian ambassador Roman Anatolyevich Kolodkin, the mayor of Maastricht Onno Hoes and the former mayor of Enschede, Theo Bovens[42] .

Although he himself states that a consul should never talk politics, on the occasion of his appointment he speaks clearly about the invasion of Crimea: ‘Western Europe has the wrong image of Russia’; and he adds that Putin is much loved in Russia: ‘According to a recent rating, seventy per cent of the population is in his favour’, this is because, he says, the people are grateful for the great evolution the Federation has undergone thanks to him; ‘It is no longer the old Russia, there are no longer people who dream of crossing the border’[43] .

Concepts reiterated publicly a few months later with greater emphasis: ‘Russia is already so great. It does not want to annex any countries. The image that exists here in Western Europe is completely out of touch with reality’. According to him, Russia is not a mafia state, ‘Everything is regulated by law. The Russian does nothing that is not legal. The annexation of Crimea, for example, was very legal. Putin is clean, honest, respectable, lives frugally and works hard. Nothing is as true as what is said about him’; Van Vloten is convinced that ‘Russia appears in a bad light because of bad propaganda in the Western media’[44] .

But this is still not enough to be considered an unwelcome guest by Maastricht: one has to wait until February 2022 when, as Russian tanks begin to spill blood in Ukraine, Van Vloten declares that ‘Putin is preventing World War III’. He not only justifies the invasion, but, among many pro-Putin delusions, goes so far as to say ‘I’m sorry he didn’t do it sooner’[45] . In an interview with ‘De Limburger’ he says: “The military structure of Ukraine must be destroyed. Afterwards, the Donbas will become independent and Ukraine will be a free and democratic country again. This is a peace mission’[46] .

His words generate indignation: a few days later, activists paint the outside walls of the Maastricht Consulate in the colours of the Ukrainian flag. Van Vloten has no choice but to remove the Russian flag flying outside the building[47] and unscrew the roadside plaque indicating the entrance to the premises – or perhaps it was the activists who uprooted it[48] . The well-known Dutch artist Jan de Groen launches an online petition proposing to immediately close the doors of the consulate[49] and asks the parliament to intervene[50] : politics discusses it, the parliamentary group of the Forum for Democracy (FvD) urges the government to take a stand, the Provincial House is illuminated in blue and yellow[51] and the government installs cameras around the consulate building[52] . The municipality of Maastricht, together with the provincial governments of North Brabant and Limburg, sends a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, ‘to draw attention to the problematic position of the Russian honorary consul in Maastricht’[53] .

The fake baron is homeless

A vodka among the Limburg consuls. The second from the right is Benoit Wesly: he will host Van Vloten (first on the left) in his hotel once he has been kicked out of La Bonbonnière[54]

Van Vloten is now in the eye of the storm, the press is all over him and discovers that the self-appointed ‘baron’ is in no way of noble lineage: his ‘title is a title purchased in Croatia’, explains the secretary of the Supreme Court of Nobility, ‘and he should have used it in the Croatian language, adding the letters HR, which he never did, thus breaking the law’ and for this the Supreme Court intends to denounce him, it is a violation of the penal code[55] . In the meantime, the mayor of Maastricht, Annemarie Penn-te Strake, announced in a letter to the city council that she had thrown the consulate out: the seat of her consulate inside the theatre La Bonbonnière is only a postal address, there is no lease, Van Vloten has occupied a seat for a long time without any rights[56] .

In early March 2022, the members of the Museumpark Archeon in Alphen aan den Rijn, which over the years has become one of the biggest tourist attractions in the Groen Hart, outraged by the consul’s public statements, decided to sever all ties with VVM Group, Van Vloten’s company with which they had started a joint venture years earlier to provide catering services[57] . Van Vloten is also expelled as a member from the association of honorary consuls of Limburg[58] . He was left with only one loyal friend, the Israeli consul in Maastricht, Benoit Wesly, who, thanks to Van Vloten, had been working profitably with Russia for years and hosted many businessmen and tourists from that country in his hotels, whose catering service was still provided by Van Vloten’s Russian-Dutch companies[59] .

The consul has to find a location, and Benoit Wesly hosts him in the Derlon hotel, which he owns (Xelat group), a few metres from the Bonbonnière. It is not a real headquarters, there is no office, Van Vloten meets his clients in the hotel lobby, but for now he has no alternative[60] . However, the decision to host him puts Wesly in serious difficulty: for Israeli diplomacy it is a rather delicate moment: Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, calls Jews ‘the worst anti-Semites’ and claims that Adolf Hitler, like Ukrainian president Volodimir Zelensky, has Jewish blood: Wesly is attacked and tortured in his own home by a group of Naziskin[61] , and then receives a personal rebuke from Pope Francis I (as of October 2016, Wesly is a Knight of the Order of St. Sylvester[62] – which has counted among its knights Oskar Schindler and various Austrian and German military and politicians who, over the centuries, have enthusiastically committed themselves to the improvement of relations between Christianity and Moscow[63] ). Result: Constantijn Van Vloten urgently needs to find himself a new seat[64] .

Van Vloten is not a knight of any Christian order, but he is still the one who introduced Wesly to Father Alexey Maximilian Yandushev Rumyantsev, who is now the Order’s chapter delegate in St. Petersburg[65] , and is also a distinguished member of the Military Order of St. Brigid, which brings together all soldiers of Christ ready to take up arms in the event of an attack on the Catholic Church[66] , who in turn, since 2019, has been catering for a number of associations in St. Petersburg[67] .

In February 2023, Alexander Taratynov, the artist of Dutch-Russian nationality and owner of Strijthagen Castle in Landgraaf, who uses the luxurious manor as an exhibition site and meeting point for Russian buyers of art objects (as well as organising trips for special customers from Moscow and St. Petersburg[68] ), gives his friend the opportunity to open a consulate office there, although, he points out, it is only a postal address, a virtual office. Although the solution is not legal – the seat must be physical, not just an address – the transfer of the seat to Landgraaf is officially approved by the Foreign Ministry in The Hague[69] . But even this time, the hospitality does not last long: hit by criticism and threats from activists, protests from residents and local political formations, Taratynov is forced after only a few days to throw the consul[70] out the door.

The Groningen offices where the Van Vloten family companies are based[71]

From Moscow it is futile to expect active support. On the diplomatic front there is a cold war going on between Holland and Russia. Relations are bad: the former claims that Russia is underhandedly attempting to place intelligence officers by making them appear to be diplomatic officials (in February this year it expelled an unspecified number[72] , in March last year it had expelled 17 on charges of espionage[73] ), while the latter refuses to issue visas for Dutch diplomats. The Netherlands closed its consulate general in St. Petersburg on 21 February 2023 and, on the same date, also closed the Russian trade office in Amsterdam[74] . The Van Vloten family, facing business difficulties in Limburg, moved the headquarters of their companies to Groningen (almost 300 km further north), on the German border and a few kilometres from Hamburg.

At present, a very thin diplomatic thread remains in place between the two countries: apart from the considerably downsized embassies in The Hague and Moscow, both countries operate only one diplomatic site respectively: in the Netherlands, there remains the ‘homeless’ honorary consul Constantijn Van Vloten, while in Russia there is the Dutch consulate, a small office in a company building located in an extremely remote place, in the oil city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, a nine-hour flight east of Moscow, not far from the port of Korsakov, on the thousand-kilometre-long island of Sakhalin, which lies beyond Siberia, close to Japan, once a penal colony of the tsars[75] . The consul is Valery Bespalov, a once-powerful representative of those locally opposed to Yeltsin, who had links with Western neo-Nazi organisations and today, on behalf of his Oblast, is a broker of agricultural products in his region: he is nowhere to be found, but at least he can boast of an office[76] .

According to a letter from the Russian embassy sent to The Hague, the remote post in Sakhalin will remain in place provided the Netherlands allows the honorary consulate for Brabant and Limburg to survive[77] . This letter alone is enough to make one realise how important a role this character plays, bordering on caricature, and who evidently bears a responsibility that is not visible at a superficial glance. A situation that compares him to the other powerful key men of the Goznak project in Europe. What money flows between the Netherlands and Russia that this structure can still guarantee is a mystery that only the judiciary could discover.

SVE024

[1] https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_2_1963.pdf

[2] https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_2_1963.pdf

[3] https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_2_1963.pdf

[4] https://www.icij.org/investigations/shadow-diplomats/

[5] https://www.propublica.org/series/shadow-diplomats

[6] https://www.icij.org/investigations/shadow-diplomats/shadow-diplomats-have-posed-a-threat-for-decades-governments-looked-the-other-way/

[7] https://www.icij.org/investigations/shadow-diplomats/shadow-diplomats-have-posed-a-threat-for-decades-governments-looked-the-other-way/

[8] https://www.icij.org/investigations/shadow-diplomats/shadow-diplomats-have-posed-a-threat-for-decades-governments-looked-the-other-way/

[9] EUROPE HAS ONLY ENEMIES | IBI World UK

[10] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[11] Constantijn Van Vloten on Nexis

[12] https://www.standaard.be/cnt/ns1o29f2

[13] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220304_94386073

[14] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[15] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[16] https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/baron-van-vloten-consul-van-rusland-doet-er-even-het-zwijgen-toe~b60c8359/

[17] https://www.vvmgroup.com/

[18] https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/baron-van-vloten-consul-van-rusland-doet-er-even-het-zwijgen-toe~b60c8359/

[19] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220304_94386073

[20] https://www.hbvl.be/cnt/aid1481379

[21] https://www.hln.be/sint-truiden/kasteelheer-is-vriendjes-met-poetin~a41f6b0b/

[22] https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-opinie/baron-van-vloten-consul-van-rusland-doet-er-even-het-zwijgen-toe~b60c8359/

[23] https://lenta.ua/ru/v-evrope-raskryli-set-agentov-vliyaniya-rf-diskreditiruyushchih-rassledovanie-katastrofy-mh17-51841/

[24] https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20140314_01025483

[25] https://www.hbvl.be/cnt/aid1481379

[26] 2022.11.07 Intercommerz in Deutschand

[27] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/161071/2019%2001%2029%20-%20Bill%20Browder%20-%20EU%20Parliament%20Presentation.pdf

[28] 2005.08.07 United States v. Prevezon Holdings

[29] Microsoft PowerPoint – EU Parliament Presentation 29.01.2019 on money laundering5 (europa.eu)

[30] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/161071/2019%2001%2029%20-%20Bill%20Browder%20-%20EU%20Parliament%20Presentation.pdf

[31] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/details-major-russian-money-laundering-181200129.html

[32] Constantijn Van Vloten on Nexis

[33] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[34] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[35] https://www.burchten-kastelen.be/provincies/limburg/003%20Chateau%20de%20la%20Motte/Chateau%20de%20la%20Motte.html

[36] https://www.pressreader.com/belgium/het-belang-van-limburg/20140725/281767037352976

[37] Constantijn Van Vloten on Nexis

[38] https://www.demorgen.be/nieuws/geheime-seksparty-met-700-swingers-in-limburgs-kasteel~b1ba6516/

[39] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1680607/russisch-consulaat-in-maastricht-in-blauw-geel-beklad

[40] https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20140314_01025483

[41] https://www.rhcm.nl/

[42] https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20140314_01025483

[43] https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20140314_01025483

[44] https://www.groene.nl/artikel/gekwetste-zielen–2

[45] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1680607/russisch-consulaat-in-maastricht-in-blauw-geel-beklad

[46] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220228_96789405 ; Constantijn Van Vloten on Nexis

[47] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1680607/russisch-consulaat-in-maastricht-in-blauw-geel-beklad

[48] https://nltimes.nl/2022/03/02/russian-consulate-tagged-pro-ukraine-graffiti

[49] https://petities.nl/petitions/sluit-de-locatie-van-de-honorair-consul-voor-rusland-te-maastricht?locale=nl

[50] https://www.volkskrant.nl/columns-van-de-dag/jan-de-groen-stuurde-een-e-mail-en-het-ereconsulaat-van-rusland-kon-vertrekken-uit-landgraaf~bd9c5384/

[51] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220316_95133205

[52] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220304_93907890

[53] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1702473/consul-rusland-deur-gewezen-door-burgemeester-maastricht

[54] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220505_96221280

[55] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1702473/consul-rusland-deur-gewezen-door-burgemeester-maastricht

[56] https://www.1limburg.nl/nieuws/1702473/consul-rusland-deur-gewezen-door-burgemeester-maastricht ; https://www.ad.nl/limburg/maastricht-stuurt-russische-consul-weg-die-oorlog-in-oekraine-verdedigt~a4213bb5/

[57] https://www.ad.nl/alphen/archeon-breekt-met-pro-poetin-baron-de-oud-directeur-die-het-park-van-de-ondergang-redde~a8414aa7/

[58] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220317_95414566

[59] https://profi.travel/articles/18134/details

[60] https://www.limburger.nl/cnt/dmf20220505_96221280 ; Constantijn Van Vloten on Nexis

[61] https://en.azvision.az/news/108696/dutch-millionaire-&-jewish-community-leader-%E2%80%98stabbed-&-waterboarded%E2%80%99-by-robbers.html ; https://www.timesofisrael.com/masked-assailants-waterboard-rob-netherlands-jewish-leader/ ; https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/netherlands-jewish-leader-tortured-and-robbed-at-home-by-4-men

[62] https://www.vatican.va/archive/aas/documents/2016/acta-gennaio2016.pdf