Frans Meijer (criminal)

The kidnapping of Freddy Heineken, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of the brewing company Heineken International and one of the richest people in the Netherlands, and his driver Ab Doderer, was a crime that took place between 9 and 30 November 1983 in Amsterdam. They were released on a ransom of 35 million Dutch guilders (about 16 million Euros). The kidnappers Cor van Hout, Willem Holleeder, Jan Boelaard, Frans Meijer, and Martin Erkamps, were eventually caught and served prison terms.

Before being extradited, Van Hout and Holleeder stayed for more than three years in France, first on the run, then in prison, and then, awaiting a change of the extradition treaty, under house arrest, and finally in prison again. Meijer escaped and lived in Paraguay for years, until he was discovered by Peter R. de Vries and imprisoned there.

In 2003, Meijer stopped resisting his extradition to the Netherlands, and was transferred to a Dutch prison to serve the last part of his term. The kidnapping and subsequent trials and extraditions drew national attention and received broad media coverage. Several books were published on the kidnapping and two movies were made. Several of the kidnappers would later become well-known figures in Dutch organized crime.

Cor van Hout, Willem Holleeder, Frans Meijer and Jan Boellaard () had been preparing the kidnapping for two years. Martin Erkamps was later involved. Several attempts to kidnap Freddy Heineken and his driver Ab Doderer at Heineken's home in Noordwijk failed when Heineken and Doderer did not show. Subsequently they were kidnapped on 9 November 1983 at 18:56 in front of Heineken's office at the Weteringplantsoen () in Amsterdam. They were imprisoned for three weeks in a Quonset hut, belonging to Boellaards wood manufacturing company, at business park De Heining in Westpoort, in the western part of the Amsterdam harbor area. The hut was prepared in advance by the creation of a double wall on one end, with two soundproof cells with a hidden door. This made the 42 meter long hut shorter on the inside by 4 meters, which went unnoticed. The kidnappers took care of their prisoners outside working hours. The standoff with the police ended with the payment of the ransom, which was the highest ransom ever paid for a kidnap victim at the time.

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Wikipedia