Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - This Reality TV Producer Killed Someone - The Jean-Claude and Hilde Story

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Jean-Claude Lacote and Hilde Van Acker were a Belgian couple who became internationally notorious after the 1996 murder of British businessman Simon Dale, a crime they committed in Knokke-Heist before fleeing the country and vanishing for more than two decades. Skilled con artists, they slipped through Europe, the United States, South Africa, Brazil, Mauritius, and Ivory Coast while living under fake identities, running fraud schemes, and even raising a daughter on the run.

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and he's living in Belgium with his girlfriend, this woman, Hilda. And these two turds are career con artists. They've scammed hundreds of people out of millions of euros across Germany and France and Belgium. But apparently, scamming millions of euros isn't enough. they still want more money, no matter how many people they have to cheat to get it. So one day in 1996, they come up with a pretty weird scam. It's this fake business plan where they intend to buy some used airplane parts so that they can resell them for a higher profit later. And they need startup capital to make this work, which means they're looking for some investors to con.

And that is how they meet this guy, Marcus. And Marcus is a British entrepreneur, and he sees this airplane parts business as an opportunity to make some money. So he contacts Jean-Claude, and he ends up investing 500,000 euros. And I guess Jean-Claude is like, all right, buddy, we'll get you the airplane parts soon. Then some time passes. And Marcus, he hasn't heard anything back from Jean-Claude in a while. And soon he realizes he's been scammed. And he is pissed.

and he is not about to let this slide. So somehow he's able to track Jean-Claude down, and he tells him, I want my money back where I'm going straight to the police. And Jean-Claude and Hilda, they don't like this at all. Because if Marcus reports them, they'll probably go to jail. So they decide the best way to solve this problem is to get rid of Marcus for good.

So they hit up Marcus, and they tell him that they have his money ready, and they politely invite him to meet up with them at a local park, so that they can hand it over. And Marcus agrees. And soon enough, they meet. And Jean-Claude and Hilda act like everything is normal.

And then suddenly, blam, blam, they shoot him. And that, unfortunately, unalives him. And then they take his body over to some nearby sand dunes, and they bury it in a shallow grave. Then they flee the country so that they don't get caught. They take a ferry from Belgium, and they travel over. to the UK. Meanwhile, back at the dunes where they buried Marcus, I guess some young kids are playing around in the area, and that is where they unfortunately discover his body. And later,

the police arrive and they start investigating all this, and they check Marcus's phone records, and they see that he's been contacting a couple named Jean-Claude and Hilda. So now, Jean-Claude and Hilda are suspects. But they don't know it yet. They're still hanging out in the UK. And after a few days, they start thinking, okay, it's probably safe to return to Belgium now. So they take a flight back to Belgium. And the moment they land at the airport, bam, they're arrested. Now, even though Belgium police suspect them of murder, at this point, they don't quite have enough evidence to charge them with anything. So eventually, they release Jean-Claude and Hilda. But on the condition that they're not allowed to travel outside the country while the investigations are

still going on. So of course, they travel outside the country while the investigations are still going on. They immediately flee from Belgium all the way down to Miami, Florida. And there, they live for a while, and they start a clothing business, and they even get married. How nice. Meanwhile, back in Belgium, the police have put out warrants for their arrest. So Jean-Claude and Hilda know that it's only a matter of time till they get busted and extradited back to Belgium on some murder charges. And they don't want that, of course. So they decide to flee again, this time from Miami all the way to Johannesburg, South Africa. And there they start living like royalty, because they got all this money from scamming people over the years. So they move into a mansion,

they drive around in a Ferrari, and they fly in a private jet sometimes. Not only that, somehow Jean-Claude conns his way into a job as a producer of a reality crime show called duty calls. And this show is literally about police catching real criminals. I think it's like the equivalent to that show in the U.S. called cops. So he produces this show for a couple of years. And the whole time on the side, he and Hilda are still conning people using their same old tricks. And it seems to keep working. But For whatever reason, it still doesn't seem to be enough for Jean-Claude and Hilday. They want more.

So one day in 2003, they decide to pull another con job. And that is when they meet this guy, Hanley. And Hanley, he's an Irish businessman, and he's trying to buy four airplanes for a new airline he's part of. But he needs a loan to do that. So Jean-Claude offers to lend him about $1.5 million so he can buy these people. planes. However, Hanley would first have to pay a surety of one million euros. And I don't really get this scam or how it works, but, you know, this is what they did. And so Hanley's like, sure thing. And he sends over the million euros. And of course, John Claud and Hilday

disappear with the money. And it doesn't take long before Hanley realizes that he's been scammed and he goes straight to the police. And so in 2007, South African police start looking for Jean-Claude. And eventually, bam, they arrest him and they throw him in jail. Now, Hilda wasn't the one doing business with Hanley, so she didn't get arrested. But at this point, she's scared because she knows that with this arrest, Jean-Claude might be extradited back to Belgium where they're wanted for murder, and she's not about to let that happen. And that is when she comes up with an insane plan to pose as a police officer and trick the other officers into letting Jean-Claude out of jail. And it's an absolutely crazy idea, but that's what she's going to do.

So one day, she poses as a police officer. I guess she like dresses up as one. And she walks into a local jail and she has these forged documents claiming that they're from a judge. And she tells them that she needs to take Jean-Claude to another location for questioning. And she absolutely fools this poor clerk working there. And this clerk is like, it's weird, but all right. And And just like that, Hilde and John Claude walk out of jail without anyone suspecting them of anything. So now he is officially a fugitive, so they can't stay in the country. So they flee from South Africa all the way over to Brazil. But they don't stay in Brazil very long.

Eventually, they flee from there and they head back over to Ivory Coast. In Ivory Coast, Jean-Claude and Hilda changed their names, and they try and start over completely. Like they start living sort of normal life with their daughter because I guess they have a daughter. And it seems like this worked and everything's good now and no one's bothering them and no one's ever going to catch them. Until. Until years go by. And it's now 2019. Which means that John Claude and Hilda have been on the run for over 20 years and they still haven't been caught.

But then Europol, which is a European law. enforcement agency. They decide to raise more awareness for the Europe's most wanted list, hoping that people will come forward with any information and that they can use that to catch some of the fugitives on this list. And so they launch a campaign called Crime Has No Gender, which focuses on several different female fugitives that they're after. And on that list of lady fugitives is Hilda. Like her picture is right at the forefront of it, so she becomes the face of it. And with all that publicity, the Ivory Coast police realized that Hilday and her husband are actually living right there in their country. And so they find them and bam, they arrest Jean-Claude and then bam, they arrest Hilded.

Here's a picture of him and here's a picture of her. And so ultimately, they're extradited back to Belgium where they're both convicted and he gets sentenced to life in prison while she also gets sentenced to life in prison.