Martin Kok (25 June 1967 – 8 December 2016) was a Dutch criminal turned blogger.

Early life

He grew up in

Volendam Volendam () is a fishing town in the municipality of Edam-Volendam, province of North Holland, Netherlands. As of 1 January 2021, it has a population of 22,715. It is twinned with Coventry, England. History Originally, Volendam was the location o ...

and as a teenager sold

eels Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

along with his father and brother, dressed in traditional Volendammer garb of red shirt, baggy black pants, and clogs. He didn't enjoy it, but started selling eels in bars frequented by criminals and then moved into cocaine dealing. He was nicknamed "the Stutterer".

Criminal career

In 1988 he shot at and missed a former schoolmate who had cut into his business. Several months later he fought with a rival, hitting him with a barstool. The rival died of his injuries the following day and Kok was sentenced to five years in prison. During this imprisonment he befriended

Willem Holleeder Willem Frederik Holleeder (born 29 May 1958) is a Dutch criminal. He is nicknamed ''De Neus'' (''The Nose'') because of the size of his nose. In 1983, Holleeder was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment for his involvement in the kidnapping o ...

, who was in prison for the

kidnapping of Freddy Heineken Freddy Heineken, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of the brewing company Heineken International and one of the richest people in the Netherlands, and his driver Ab Doderer, were kidnapped on 9 November 1983 in Amsterdam. They were relea ...

. He also befriended

Cor van Hout Cornelis (Cor) van Hout (18 August 1957 – 24 January 2003) was a Dutch criminal and mastermind of the kidnapping of beer magnate Freddy Heineken. Life Kidnapping and imprisonment During the abduction, Van Hout collaborated with Willem Holleed ...

, an accomplice of Holleeder in the kidnapping. On release from prison he murdered the boyfriend of a former partner. He also expanded his business into prostitution.

Blogging

He started a crime blog called "Vlinderscrime" ('' vlinder'' being the Dutch word for "

butterfly Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

") in February 2015. He had many contacts in the criminal world, both in and outside of jail. He reported on criminals from many backgrounds, often giving full names, instead of the Dutch media tradition of given name and initial. He enjoyed his newfound fame and would often taunt other criminals. He was sponsored by and ran adverts for MPC, a company that provided encrypted phones to criminals.

Assassination attempts

Someone tried to shoot him while he was at home in 2015 but failed, leaving bullet holes in his car. In 2016 an explosive device was found under his car.

Death

On 8 December 2016 he was walking with another man in Amsterdam when CCTV showed someone running up behind him outside the Citizen M hotel and pointing a gun at him. It is not clear if the gun jammed or if the shooter lost nerve. The target seemed to be unaware of the attempt on his life. Later that evening, outside a sex club in Laren, a second attempt was made, which succeeded. He was buried in Vredenhof Cemetery.

Aftermath

The murder was linked to a Scottish criminal organisation by Scottish police who had investigated them via Operation Escalade. A European Arrest Warrant was issued for Christopher Hughes in relation to the murder. He was faced with charges of concealing money and supplying encrypted devices to others (including Kok), a second charge relating to the supply of cocaine and a final charge in relation to the murder of Kok. In April 2022 Hughes was convicted at the High Court in

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and jailed for at least 25 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kok, Martin 1967 births 2016 deaths Dutch murderers Dutch drug traffickers Dutch male bloggers Prisoners and detainees of the Netherlands Dutch prisoners and detainees Dutch murder victims Dutch gangsters Murdered gangsters Assassinated Dutch people Deaths by firearm in the Netherlands People murdered in the Netherlands People murdered by British organized crime 21st-century assassinated people