Column Daily Wely: Frankie 'The Silent One'

The Daily Wely is a column about my work, crime, and safety that appears multiple times per week on this site. Today number 1: Frankie 'The Silent One'

In a coffee corner of the V&D department store in Groningen, we saw each other for the first time in 2013. Frank had just served his sentence in prison for large-scale production of ecstasy and arms dealing. He had a message for the mother of a murdered girl.

It would be the first of countless meetings. Frank S. became one of my most important contacts in the criminal underworld. He never named names, never snitched on anyone, but taught me an incredible amount about the underworld and especially the world of synthetic drugs. After I once helped him with a serious psychological issue, he placed a hand on my shoulder and said: “I am your life insurance. Anyone who hurts you in any way will have their turn.” I emphatically stated that this was not necessary, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Frank had sent an email and wanted to meet. Because that summer day in 2014, he had a message for a mother. That mother was Yvonne Eleveld. Her 7-year-old daughter Naomi Chanel was brutally raped and murdered in Assen in the summer of 1999. Jan Stoffers, the Monster of Assen, strangled her under a cold shower after prolonged abuse. During the abuse, the sex offender ordered a pizza, and when she was alone with the monster in the house, she must have heard her mother calling her name on the street. Her mother had been looking for her daughter who was playing outside.

In my book Levenslang over levenslanggestraften (Life Sentence, 2013), the murder was covered extensively. I had interviewed the mother, and she is one of dozens of survivors with whom I maintain regular contact. The murder had deeply affected Frankie. “I want you to tell her that I can arrange for Jan Stoffers to be beaten up every Christmas in prison,” he said nobly. I passed it on to Yvonne that same evening. She found it kind of him but declined the offer.

Since that day in the coffee corner, I’ve met Frank dozens of times and spoken with him even more often. We even became friends. I don’t judge people solely based on their actions. People make mistakes. I look at whether someone is a bad or good person. Someone who lives strictly by the law can be a bigger jerk than a crook with a good heart.

Frank was big. Very big. Twice he was sentenced to four and five years in prison by the Northern Netherlands court for leading a criminal organization. When he had to pay a few hundred thousand as a confiscation order, he eagerly asked the judge if he could pay immediately. Incidentally, the prosecutor had demanded nearly three million euros. Frank had great authority in the underworld and was regularly called in by criminals to mediate conflicts.

The Sicilian-born Frank had earned tens of millions of euros from the trade. In Paris, he had himself chauffeured around in a limousine with beautiful women. The city’s best hairdresser was allowed to come to the hotel to style a mistress’s hair.

During our meetings, we always smoked fine cigars and drank sublime wines, whiskies, and cognac. Frank still liked to devour a large cup of sorbet ice cream. I have rarely seen anyone empty a glass coupe with such gusto. He shared more and more as mutual trust grew. He never asked me for a favor, there was never a subtle threat. I could have trusted him to babysit my children.

But his conscience slowly began to gnaw at Frankie. And this is how it went. For years, he did business with Russians: top military officials from whom he bought raw materials for the production of synthetic drugs. Partly thanks to Frank, ecstasy-popping Netherlands could go wild at parties between roughly 2000 and 2010.

The man who once played for the youth team of football club Heracles had devised an ingenious trick to bring the chemicals to the Netherlands. He was involved in a project around a bus line between Ukraine and Germany, a place near the border, for transporting children from Chernobyl. Children who had become seriously ill after the nuclear disaster in 1986 could recover with host families there. ‘The Silent One’ had the fuel tanks of the buses divided into two compartments with a partition: one part contained fuel, the other raw materials for ecstasy production.

For a liter of the highly sought-after BMK or PMK, criminals paid around 2,800 euros, and so a bus trip yielded over 400,000 euros. There were dozens of trips. Because S. also pressed his own pills, his operation was a real goldmine due to the extremely low costs. It went well until a bus was inspected at the German border after S. was betrayed. Incidentally, he directed transport and production from prison in Veenhuizen, where he served four years for his first criminal case.

In 2024, S. learned that he is terminally ill. Since then, he has lost dozens of kilos and can only get through the days with the help of morphine. He has been abroad for years and said goodbye to the criminal world. The man is enormously intelligent and set up several thriving businesses. After 2006, he was never convicted again.

So his conscience slowly began to gnaw. For ten years, I asked him if we could put his life story on paper. But he steadfastly refused. Until December 2025. “Mick, we’re going to do it. There are some things I regret. Like the Chernobyl trips. I also want to warn people against a career in crime.” Literally that same day, I had my publisher on the line and the starting shot was given for a new book. We are also already in talks with major parties about a TV series and a film. And I guarantee: both will be spectacular. The life story of ‘The Silent One’ is insane.

One more anecdote. Frank had a female bodyguard for some time. I met her once. We were sitting in a restaurant in Northern Netherlands and I had brought a box of chocolates for her. I gave Frank a compliment: “What a nice and beautiful woman.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and said without flinching: “Certainly. But if necessary, she’ll shoot someone right through the kneecap.”

Oh yes: Yvonne Eleveld is fortunately doing well, all things considered. She hopes that Jan Stoffers will remain locked up for the rest of his life. I share her hope.