AFTER HIS RELEASE IN 2012, WIM WORKED TO RESTORE HIS STANDING IN the criminal world, and by the end of the year, he was well on his way to regaining his previous dominance.
Using his remarkable charisma and boldness, he managed to turn his enemies back into friends. He assembled “gunmen” around him, past killers he thought he could trust.
The only thing he lacked was money.
He did have some, but not nearly as much as he was used to. He told us he’d once had forty million euros, but he’d left jail nearly penniless after the government recovered seventeen million euros from him—and he claimed former friends stole from him. In an attempt to generate some cash and “get back up,” he invested in cannabis plantations and the cocaine trade.
But he had other plans, too.
Shortly after his release, he appeared on Sonja’s doorstep. Instead of a sister, he saw two bags of money: Cor’s money, and money from the American film adaptation of the 1985 book The Kidnapping of Alfred Heineken by our friend Peter R. de Vries. Peter had written the book based on interviews with Cor, and arranged for royalties to be split between himself and Cor. The book had done very well, and in 2011 it was turned into a Dutch movie. Wim had sued to prevent the release of the film, but he lost. It was said that he also threatened the film’s director. Now there was an American remake in the works, and Wim was determined to either stop the production or get his hands on the profits. Sonja told him she didn’t have any of Cor’s money, but Wim didn’t believe her. According to him, Cor had had considerable capital, which she’d inherited, so she had money and it wasn’t hers to keep. It was his, for he bore the burden—making the gun gesture—and still risked prosecution. Why should she benefit?
Wim kept returning to Sonja’s doorstep, asking the same question: “Where’s the money?”
Her standard reply was “I don’t have any money.”
Early in 2013, though, when the press reported that Sonja had been sued for Cor’s inheritance and had finally settled for 1.2 million euros, Wim had found his proof. “If you settle for one point two million euros, you gotta be loaded.”
He concluded that there had to be money, and lots of it. Her denial only fired him up more. He wouldn’t be “bamboozled”; she was going to pay him “or else she’d see what happened” (making his usual gun gesture).
Wim’s extortion of Sonja had begun.
He started “sharing” with me how Sonja was a filthy whore and a selfish bitch.
“She’s saying she’s got nothing, but I don’t buy it. She’s a weasel, trying to keep everything for herself, but I’ll find her out, all right.”
That’s what he wanted to use me for, to get information and to pass on information, since he knew she trusted me and that I was always in touch with her. To get me to take on this role, I’d have to cross over from Camp Sonja to Camp Wim. First, he had to get me out of my own reality and to see the reality he was showing me.
Every day he’d bring his reality to my door, trying to brainwash me. He’d talk to me, sometimes three times in one day, telling me I needed to know “the truth” and see “what a weasel” she really was.
He’d supply the craziest kinds of evidence.
“As, they’re driving cars. Their closets are jam-packed with Gucci. Do you have any idea how expensive Gucci is?”
I knew how the cars had been paid for, and I only had to open Sonja’s closet to see just one fake Gucci belt and two fake Gucci sweaters in there, but that didn’t make any difference to him.
He applied the power of repetition, delivering the same message every day: “She’s got money, and it’s mine. She stole it from me.” When he thought I’d taken in his view of reality, he took the next step to successfully induct me into his camp. Now that I’d finally “seen” how Sonja had fooled him, I should know that he wasn’t her only victim; she abused me as well. “Assie, you should stop paying bills for her. She’s just using you. She’s using both of us, because she’s got money, all right.”
She was lying to him and lying to me.
“Why is she lying to you?” he asked, seemingly concerned for my well-being. “See what a filthy whore she is? She’s lying, even to you, who does everything for her!” Here he was, caring enough to warn me about her. Because he recognized it, he was getting played by her as well! We were both being played! The two of us were buddies. Connected. We had to turn against her together.
I didn’t react the way he wanted me to, though. I wouldn’t be dragged into his conspiracy against her, because I knew how it would end. In dealing with him, it was important to stay neutral as long as possible, not to be sucked into his strategy: creating a conflict for him to use as grounds for extortion, extortion he justified by her so-called stealing from him.
He’ll use such justifications to explain why someone should commit to him, because he won’t get his hands dirty on anything. He’ll send his troops forward. Common soldiers, cannon fodder.
He’ll get there when it’s time to haul in the loot.
It took some prevarication for me to stay neutral about Sonja while still making him feel that I was on his side. My neutrality annoyed him, and I was increasingly nervous that he might see where my loyalties really were. But choosing his side just like that wasn’t an option, either, since I’d be exposing myself to the risk of having to fix things for him that might prove disadvantageous to Sonja or myself.
I felt like a juggler trying to keep dozens of balls in the air. After making me listen to his complaints about Sonja and “his money,” he renewed his attack on Francis: she’d been “talking” about him. She’d told one of his girlfriends he’d had Cor “done,” and Sonja should pay for her indiscretion.
Eventually, he figured he couldn’t use Francis’s “talking” as a basis for extortion because it pointed too much toward the liquidation of Cor, and he was afraid he’d be prosecuted.
He moved on and found somebody else.
But that didn’t mean Sonja was safe. Wim would be back as soon as he found a new reason to harass her. And it didn’t take him long.