HONG KONG has become the focus of a five-year Dutch money laundering and tax evasion investigation linked to a series of murders, drug trafficking, pornography, and millions of dollars in allegedly dirty cash. But a hearing last Thursday to gather evidence in the complex case was postponed until May 5, after defence solicitors Haldanes called for more time. The investigation revolves around alleged tax evasion by Dutchman Charlie Geerts, who runs the largest pornographic business in Europe and who was arrested last November. His company, Scala, based in Holland where pornography is legal, is also under investigation, as is a Hong Kong company believed to have been used as a front to launder about $100 million since 1988. His co-accused is alleged bagman Ricardo Reeberg, who was arrested on March 23. Reeberg's detention coincided with the arrival in Hong Kong of officers from the Fiscale Inlichtingen en Opsporings Dienst, the equivalent of the Inland Revenue Service in the US. A source said profits from European drug trafficking were brought to Hong Kong and laundered through the company here, then wired back to Holland as large loans for gang members. A Haldanes lawyer said the May 5 hearing would seek to 'set aside the order for an examination' which, if approved, would block the line of inquiry in Hong Kong. A team of Dutch investigators, including a judge, a prosecutor and a detective, are continuing the Hong Kong probe, which stems from the murder of one of Britain's 'Great Train Robbers' and one of the largest drug seizures in Europe. Charlie Wilson, who was one of the masterminds of the 1963 great train robbery, was released from jail in 1978 and became involved in drug smuggling. He was shot dead in April 1990 at his villa in Spain. Wilson was believed to have been killed by former south London gangster Roy Adkins, who had teamed up in the 1970s with Dutch drug baron Klaas Bruinsma in a syndicate that moved large amounts of hashish from Pakistan to Holland and on to other countries. Millions of dollars worth of profits from the operation, which smuggled drugs into the UK in cars on cross-Channel ferries, was laundered through banks in Hong Kong over several years. Five months after Wilson's murder, Adkins, 41, was shot dead in Amsterdam by two gunmen who have never been traced. Bruinsma, identified in Dutch newspaper reports as the world's largest hashish smuggler, was shot to death in June 1991. Bruinsma linked up with Adkins to set up a global network using companies set up in Pakistan to ship the drugs to Europe in containers of textiles and souvenirs. But a plan to smuggle a massive 45,000 kilograms of hash into Holland in 1990 failed when the consignment, worth GBP135 million and known as the Big Mountain, was seized by Dutch police. The gangsters fell out and a shooting match erupted at a sex club in Amsterdam, although neither man was injured. Investigators believe Bruinsma was eventually killed because he became a liability to his own syndicate. A disgraced former Dutch police officer, Martin Hoogland, was convicted of his murder in June 1993 and another killing, and was sentenced to 20 years in jail.