Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that proves there's more than one way to
make history. I'm Gabe Louizier, and today we're looking at
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the time when a billionaire beer baron and his long
suffering chauffeur were grabbed off the street and held captive
in a warehouse for nearly a month. The day was
November nine. Alfred Freddie Heineken, CEO of the Heineken Brewery,
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was abducted at gunpoint outside the company's headquarters in Amsterdam.
Heineken's chauffeur of forty years, a man named ab Dotterer,
was seized along with him. When news of the kidnapping broke,
a global effort was launched to track down the missing
billionaire and a veteran driver. The men were held hostage
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for nearly a month, but thanks to a revealing Chinese
takeout order, the police were finally able to track them down.
Freddie Heineken was born on November fourth three. He was
the grandson of the founder of the Heineken Brewery, and
during his twenty year tenure as CEO and chairman of
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the board. Freddie grew his family's business into a global
brand worth billions of dollars. By the early nineteen eighties,
he was one of the wealthiest men in Europe, which
made him a prime target for extortionists. The five men
behind his kidnapping were low level criminals who had met
in their youth in a rough neighborhood of the Dutch capital.
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They wanted a big enough score to set them up
for life, and their search led directly to Freddie, the
biggest businessman in town. The gang spent months stalking Freddy's movements,
learning his daily routine, and looking for the perfect moment
to strike. In the end, the gang made their move
on a cold evening in November, when, oddly enough, Freddie
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Heineken was hosting a gathering for the local police. According
to The New York Times, Freddie and his driver were
quote abducted by three hooded gunmen soon after a luncheon
Mr Heineken had given for the policeman who foiled an
attempt to extort millions from his brewery. Mr Heineken and
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Mr Dotterer were taken by panel truck to a westside
industrial section, an area of auto wrecking and carpentry shops.
Although the kidnappers were amateurs, they had studied other prominent
abductions and therefore put a great deal of thought and
preparation into their crime. The warehouse where they held Freddy
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and Driver had been outfitted with two soundproof cells hidden
behind a false wall. The two men were stripped of
their belongings and shackled to the walls of their respective
cells to avoid the chance of being identified later. The
hooded criminals communicated with their hostages either through sign language
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or written notes. The notes proved to be a headache
for the kidnappers, as the sixty year old Heineken kept
demanding consummey cigarettes and other luxuries they didn't expect a
prisoner to ask for. The gang had intended to hold
the men for no more than forty eight hours, but
due to a series of setbacks, the kidnapping actually dragged
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on for over three weeks. In the meantime, the kidnappers
kept up appearances by going to their day jobs like
usual and then checking in on the hostages in their
spare time. The criminals had used coded messages and newspapers
to demand a rand some of about eleven million dollars. Eventually,
they arranged for the police to stop on a highway
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overpass and drop the money into a storm drain, which
they had marked with a traffic cone. The money was
delivered in five mail bags, which slid down the drain
and then landed in the back of a waiting pickup truck.
From there, the crew drove the ransom to a secluded
spot where they buried the money in barrels, ditched the truck,
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and went their separate ways in the most Dutch way
possible on bicycles. By this point, the police had received
an anonymous tip about the general area where Freddie and
his driver were being held. Shortly before paying the ransom,
the police held a stake out in hopes of pinning
down the exact location. As they waited, they saw someone
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ordered take out at a local Chinese restaurant and then
take it to a nearby warehouse. The police figure or
this might be the scene of the crime, but since
the ransom was set to be paid, they decided not
to raid the warehouse just yet. After all, there was
still a chance the criminals would keep their end of
the deal and release the hostages without incident. Unfortunately, the
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day After receiving the ransom, the gang realized the cops
were closing in. They decided to abandon their hostages and
try to make a clean escape while they could. Meanwhile,
the Dutch police still hadn't heard from the kidnappers, and
it was starting to look like they never would. Ultimately,
the police stormed the warehouse, and though the trick wall
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fooled them for a bit, they eventually found the concealed
cells and freed the men inside. Both men were understandably
shaken by the ordeal, though Freddie Heineken tried to play
it cool, asking his rescuers quote, could you not have
come a bit earlier? On the other hand, ab Dotterer
was deeply affected by his captivity, and even the kidnappers
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later expressed remorse for having involved Heineken's driver. As for
the gang in the ransom, they took about a quarter
of the money with them when they went into hiding,
roughly the equivalent of about two and a half million dollars.
The rest of the loot remained buried, but was eventually
recovered by police. Over the next four years, the five
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men behind the crime were gradually captured and convicted, much
to Freddy's relief. The beer tycoon had downplayed the danger
of his abduction, even joking to a friend that quote,
they tortured me, they made me drink Carlsberg. But there's
reason to think that he was more rattled by the
experience than he led on. Following the incident, but before
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the gang's capture, Freddie established a personal security company staffed
with former police. They protected him and his family around
the clock. From then on, he also beefed up his
home security, traveled by armored car, and kept a few
of those bodyguards by his side whenever he went out.
He may have gone a little overboard with the personal protection,
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but it's hard to argue with the results. In all
the years between three and his death from pneumonia in
two thousand two, Freddy Heineken was never kidnapped again, and
thankfully neither was his driver. I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully
you now know a little more about history today than
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you did yesterday. If you enjoyed the show, consider following
us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at t D I
HC Show, and if you have any feedback to share,
you can drop me a line at this day at
I heeart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for
producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see
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you back here again tomorrow for another Day in History.
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