Property dealer Willem Endstra (51) shot dead outside his office on Apollolaan

On Monday 17 May 2004 the 51-year-old property dealer Willem Endstra was shot dead as he walked to his car with a business associate outside his office on Apollolaan in Amsterdam-Zuid. The man with him was also wounded but survived. Endstra was known as the 'banker of the underworld' and in the period before his death had talked secretly to the Criminal Intelligence Unit about the extortion he said he was facing - the later published 'Endstra tapes'. The investigation into the murder took years. In 2006 three men were arrested and released again; on 18 January 2016 the Amsterdam court acquitted three suspects of taking part in or assisting the killing. In the end Willem Holleeder was sentenced to life in the Vandros trial on 4 July 2019, among other things for inciting the murder of Endstra and the attack on his companion. The Amsterdam court of appeal upheld that sentence on 24 June 2022, and on 9 January 2024 the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in cassation, making the life sentence final. Who fired the shots has never been established by a court.