Bol.com suspends top seller suspected of murdering girlfriend in Amsterdam
Dutch e-commerce platform Bol.com has temporarily suspended its partnership with Clen V., a 39-year-old Utrecht entrepreneur known for selling tens of thousands of his self-help “anti-stress planner,” after he was arrested on suspicion of murdering his 40-year-old girlfriend, De Gelderlander reported.
He has been remanded in custody for 14 more days and is expected to appear at an arraignment hearing by April 24, when a district court can extend his pretrial detention by up to 90 more days.
The victim was found dead in her Amsterdam home on March 26. The case has also triggered other companies and media organizations to remove his content from circulation.
Police say the woman, an employee of ABN Amro and V.’s partner with whom he has a child, was found lifeless in her residence in Amsterdam. Authorities are treating the death as a criminal offense and arrested V. shortly afterward. Only weeks before her death, V. posted on LinkedIn: “Life can be pure joy!”
A company spokesperson said, “At Bol.com, we attach great importance to clear agreements with our partners regarding reliability, transparency, and responsible entrepreneurship. Based on our applicable partner conditions, and in light of media reports about this partner, we have decided to pause the account temporarily so we can carefully assess the situation.”
An education platform that previously collaborated with V., New Heroes Academy, also removed material connected to him. A spokesperson said, “The person in question developed one learning journey for us in the period 2017–2020. We published a number of videos and an article around that time. Thereafter, we did not continue working together. Following yesterday’s news reports, we have taken the only article featuring him and four videos offline.”
V. rose to prominence after launching the Purpuz planner, which he described as a structured “paper life coach” designed around daily goals. The planner became a bestseller on Bol.com, repeatedly topping sales rankings. He once described his business as a “money machine,” claiming it generated about 10,000 euros per month in net income.
He frequently compared his ambition to media tycoon John de Mol, founder of Endemol and Talpa Network. Speaking to Dutch news site IndeBuurt, he said, “John de Mol makes television programs he enjoys himself, and, by coincidence, many others enjoy them too. That is how I see it, too: I have created my own ‘dream agenda,' and I hope and believe others can benefit from it as well.” Media company Talpa Network has since removed the episodes featuring V.
V. also openly described his long-term ambition to dominate the planner market, saying he wanted to create the most widely known planner in the Netherlands and even see it adopted in mental health care. “I want to have the Netherlands’ best-selling planner that everyone knows,” he said. He stated, "You are basically a loser if you don’t have it.” In another interview, he said, “I always dreamed of not having to work.”
Beyond his business activity, V. appeared in multiple Dutch television dating programs, where his behavior often drew negative reactions from viewers and participants. In 2019, he appeared on “Iris en de 12 dates” with pianist Iris Hond, who later said, “I thought, who is this person. Shit.”
In 2020, he participated in the SBS 6 program “Lang leve de liefde,” where viewers dubbed him the “winner of the superficiality trophy 2020.” During the show, he made remarks including, “I’m just kind of a slut,” and "Oh well, a few million and you have an estate.” In the same episode, he also gave his date a lesson in defending against a knife attack.
