Astrid Holleeder’s Crime Family

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All her life, Astrid Holleeder knew that her older brother Willem was involved in crime. But she was stunned when, in 1983, Willem and his best friend, Cornelius van Hout, were revealed to be the masterminds behind the audacious kidnapping of the beer magnate Alfred Heineken. It was the beginning of a successful career for Willem, known as Wim. After a stay in prison, he became a celebrity criminal; he had a newspaper column, appeared on talk shows, and took selfies with admirers in Amsterdam. He got rich off of his investments in the sex trade and other businesses, but kept them well hidden. But when van Hout was assassinated and other associates started turning up dead, Astrid suspected that her brother had committed the murders. She decided to wear a wire and gather the evidence to put him away. If that didn't work, Astrid tells staff writer Patrick Radden Keefe, she would have to kill Willem herself. After Astrid testified against him, Willem was convicted of multiple murders. Living in hiding, and travelling in disguise, she tells Keefe the story of her complicity and its consequences. Keefe’s New Yorker story about Astrid Holleeder appears in his new collection, “Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels, and Crooks.” This segment originally aired August 3, 2018.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:10.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Patrick Raddenkief is a staff writer,
0:15.4	and really one of the best writers out there on crime, corruption, and misdeeds of all kinds.
0:22.4	In one of our earliest stories on the radio hour, Patrick introduced us to the informants who put the drug kingpin El Chapo
0:28.4	in U.S. prison. Patrick has just published a collection called Rokes, true stories of grifters,
0:35.1	killers, rebels, and crooks. And in the book, he tells the story
0:39.3	of a woman named Astrid Holader, and how she helped bring down a gangster who was her brother.
0:46.3	Crime for the Holaders was always close at hand.
0:50.0	Most of the men that I know from my family are dead. I could name not many people that are still alive that I used to know because they were shot.
1:04.1	Helator grew up in an Amsterdam neighborhood that's called Yordan.
1:08.6	It's gentrified now with galleries and Airbnb's. But when she grew up,
1:13.2	it was big families and narrow apartments and a street life that was pretty unsavory that was
1:18.0	street crime, mobsters, and tax fraud. She grew up all around that stuff. But when Hulader was
1:24.3	17, her family would be at the center of a crime that became international
1:29.2	news.
1:30.2	In Europe, the kidnappers of beer millionaire Freddie Heineken today made their first
1:33.7	demand, silence from the police, Heineken's family, or else.
1:39.2	Heineken and his chauffeur were abducted last night as Heineken left his office.
1:42.9	Almost four decades later, Astrid Hollader is still living in the aftermath of that crime.
1:48.2	Patrick Radinkeef interviewed her for the radio hour in 2018, and he had to be picked up in a car and taken to a secret location.
1:56.4	We've altered her voice in our story to protect her safety.
2:00.0	Here's Patrick.
	...

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