Willem Holleeder

Willem Frederik Holleeder (born 29 May 1958) is a Dutch criminal.

He is nicknamed De Neus (The Nose) because of the size of his nose.

Born in 1958 in Amsterdam, Willem Holleeder was the son of Wim Holleeder (1927–1990), an employee at the Heineken breweries who lost his job because of alcoholism.

As a teenager, he, along with his classmate Cor van Hout, were part of a gang that worked for landlords in evicting squatters, and may have been involved in several robberies.

Cor van Hout was later to become his brother-in-law by marrying Holleeder's sister Sonja.

In 1983, Holleeder was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for his involvement in the kidnapping of Heineken president Freddy Heineken for a 35-million-gulden (approximately €16 million, or US$19.5 million) ransom.

In 1983, their relatively unknown gang abducted the Heineken heir Freddy Heineken (who had purchased back the family ownership of the brewery), along with his driver Ab Doderer.

Ultimately, their demand for 35 million guilders (approximately €16 million, or US$19.5 million) was met by the family, although the police were against it.

After Freddy Heineken's release, the kidnappers—Cor van Hout, Willem Holleeder, Jan Boellaard, Frans Meijer, and Martin Erkamps—were all eventually traced and served prison sentences.

During this period, Holleeder met many other gangsters, including Dennis Stewart and Yvon Lodewijks, who was later accused of ordering the murder of Holleeder's brother-in-law and co-criminal Cor van Hout.

After serving the Heineken sentence, Holleeder emerged as a high-profile criminal leader.

Several million guilders of the Heineken ransom were never traced, and may have been part of the initial sum he and Cor van Hout hoped to use for a new extortion empire; there are said to have been up to 24 people in his crime ring.

After his release from prison in 1990, Holleeder was close to Willem van Boxtel, the president of the Hell Angels Amsterdam chapter.

Initially, he was in a business relationship with real estate businessman Willem Endstra, possibly involving money laundering.

Among the witnesses in the trial was lawyer Bram Zeegers, who testified that Holleeder had been extorting millions of euros from Endstra between 2000 and 2004.

A week after the testimony, Zeegers was found dead of a drug overdose.

After Cor van Hout was killed in 2003, Holleeder fell out with Endstra.

In early 2004, Endstra was reported to have offered one million euros to Boxtel to have Holleeder killed.

Endstra secretly testified to the police about Holleeder, but was shot dead near his office in 2004.

It is suspected that Holleeder, along with his partner-in-crime Dino Soerel, ordered the murder of both Willem Endstra and John Mieremet, who was shot in Thailand on 2 November 2005.

Holleeder's name keeps turning up in this connection although three suspects in the Endstra murder, Ali N. and C. Özgür of Alkmaar and Cleon D. from Almere have been released.

According to Endstra, Holleeder was involved in 25 murders, including that of Cor van Hout.

The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported on 16 July 2006 that Holleeder and Cor van Hout had planned to kidnap Prince Bernhard instead of Freddy Heineken in the 1980s.

Thomas van der Bijl, who was murdered in his bar in Amsterdam in April 2006, made these allegations in a deposition before the Dutch national police.

Holleeder's 2006 trial was dubbed the trial of the century.

His lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz, argued that media depictions of Holleeder as one of the "topcriminelen" had prejudiced the case against him.

However, Moszkowicz was forced to resign after media allegations of conflict of interest, since he had also been the lawyer for Willem Endstra.

Then, in 2007 Holleeder was sentenced to nine years in prison for several counts of extortion, including the extortion of Willem Endstra, who was murdered in 2004 after falling out with Holleeder.

In late 2007, Holleeder underwent a heart valve surgery; initially, reports of his failing health were thought to be a hoax, but present medical opinion appears to suggest that he is indeed in poor health and may not survive the present sentence.

Whilst under detention in 2008, he was arrested for alleged involvement in the murder of Yugoslav drug dealer Serge Miranovic in 2006.

Holleeder was found guilty of extortion and sentenced to nine years in prison, at a time held in Nieuw Vosseveld.

His subsequent appeal was turned down by the appeals court in July 2009.

He served his sentence in Nieuw Vosseveld and was released on 27 January 2012.

Holleeder was released from De Schie prison in Rotterdam on 27 January 2012, after serving two-thirds of his nine-year term.

He had been due to be released on 31 January but was let out early to avoid publicity.

After his release he appeared on television in the show College Tour in 2012.

He also made a record named Willem is terug ("Willem is back") in September 2012 together with Lange Frans, a Dutch rapper.

He was arrested again in May 2013 (released 12 June 2013), May 2015 and April 2016.

In July 2019, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for five murders and one count of manslaughter.

The sentence was upheld by the Amsterdam Appeals Court on the 24th of June, 2022.