Amsterdam has been the scene of a bad scene from the Casa de Papel: a 27-year-old armed man has held for five hours to more than 70 hostages in an Apple Store while demanding €200 million in cryptocurrencies for release.
The running away of the last hostage has put an end to the kidnapping. The young man has entered camouflage dress mid-afternoon yesterday in the shop on the central Leidseplein and immediately took the first customer he saw hostage at gunpoint.
Several images have circulated on social networks with the kidnapper walking through the store with an arm around the hostage’s neck (a 44-year-old British client), or the two of us sitting across from each other.
The details have been offered this morning by the mayor’s office, the prosecutor’s office and the Amsterdam police, who have kept all the negotiation and information about what was happening secret so as not to influence the investigation.
Inside the building there were more than 70 people on different floors, and four hid in a cupboard downstairs. “They lived in fear for hours. We have organized Psychological Support victims,” Deputy Mayor Rutger Groot Wassink said.
The bars, restaurants and other neighboring establishments locked people inside due to the risk of a possible shooting, the police cordoned off the entire area, closed traffic in both directions and requested reinforcements from the Special Intervention Service (DSI), with armored cars, and gendarmerie officers.
Armed with gun and bomb vest
The kidnapper is a 27-year-old man born in Amsterdam, with a criminal record related to the Weapons and Ammunition Law, and, in principle, he acted alone, with an automatic weapon, a pistol and a bomb-proof vest that during the kidnapping showed as an alleged explosive vest.
“The suspect was constantly holding the hostage at gunpoint and threatening to blow himself up. We were under the impression that he didn’t know exactly how many people were in the building.“, explained the head of the Amsterdam police, Frank Paauw.
It was the perpetrator himself who contacted the police as soon as the first officers arrived at the scene, and opened fire at least four times on them with an automatic weapon, shots that the hostages also heard.
200 million or “immolated”
He demanded 200 million euros in cryptocurrencies or “immolated” insideand then the negotiations began: already at night, the police managed to get several people to leave the building little by little, until accounting for about 70 people, but the kidnapper and the customer he was pointing the gun at remained inside the store.
Around midnight, the kidnapper asked for water and the police sent it with a robot to the door of the store, a moment of confusion that the hostage took the opportunity to escape running, but the aggressor came after him, and the two staged a race that ended a run over of the aggressor with a DSI car. All of that was also recorded.
“These images are always terrible, but given the situation, we are happy that it happened” in that way, added Paauw, who underlined the primary role of the hostage who ran away, since “he played a heroic role in ensuring a breakthrough, otherwise it could have been a long night,” admitted the officer.
with the crash, the hostage taking had come to an end. The kidnapper has been lying on the ground, while snipers from various sides pointed at him -as the lasers of the rifles on his body show- and a robot has examined him for explosives.
When it was confirmed that he was not carrying bombs, an ambulance took him alive to the hospital. The agents have searched two houses linked to the perpetrator and this Wednesday the investigation continues into an event that the deputy mayor lamented as a “shocking event” and “another violent incident in the center” of Amsterdam, at the time when the The city was preparing to receive tourists again after the end of the restrictions due to COVID-19.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
