Biography | Freddy Heineken — Taken From the Curb in Front of This Villa

Villa Heineken looks like a house. It was built around 1891 for Gerard Adriaan Heineken, to a design by Dolf van Gendt, on the corner of Tweede Weteringplantsoen and Nicolaas Witsenkade. The brewery stands across the water. Freddy used the villa as an office. At 18:56 on 9 November 1983 he left this door with his driver, Ab Doderer. Four men forced both of them into a van on the curb. They were held for three weeks in a Quonset hut at De Heining in Amsterdam's western harbour, behind a false wall that shortened a 42-metre workshop by four metres. A ransom of 35 million guilders was paid on 28 November. Police found the two men alive on 30 November. The kidnappers included Cor van Hout and Willem Holleeder. After the release Heineken limited his public appearances. He remained chairman until 1989 and stayed on the holding-company board until the year he died. The villa is a rijksmonument and still carries the company address. It is an office, not a house you enter. The curb is the pin. Photo: Dqfn13, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Press photograph: Rob Croes / Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.