Ok, here is a weird story. On Sept 13th some men kidnapped the 37 year old daughter of a Dutch millionaire, Claudia Melchers. Her father, Hans, owner of a Dutch chemical company is worth about 460 million Euros. There – supposedly – was no contact with the kidnappers, and a few days later, on Sept. 15th she was suddenly released again: no ransom paid. After a few day police arrested some men that were involved and today they arrested to ‘mastermind’ behind it all on the famous Copacabana beach in Brazil. Now what makes this case so interesting then? Well, it turned out that there was a ransom note after all, found at the crime scene (click here for the ransom note as a PDF-file). The kidnappers wanted 300 kilos of cocaine. Not your average ransom I would say. There is a lot more to this case than meets the eye.
Let’s look at some interesting facts here.
The company the father owns, Melchemie, has been accused of delivering several chemicals used to create chemical weapons to several countries in the Middle East, such as Iran and Iraq (in the mid-eighties). The accusations came from the FBI. In 1986 his company actually got a fine for a few ten thousands of Guilders for this. Supposedly the chemicals were used on the Kurds in Iraq in a horrific incident in the early eighties.
Another intriguing fact is, that the ex-wife of Hans Melchers, Anna Maria Lievens (“Kim”) actually provided the police (or FBI) with the documents that proved Melchemie was actually delivering those chemicals. Off course they got divorced. She also said that the company still was delivering chemicals illegally to some other companies, even after that. According to some sources Melchers tried to intimidate her and she was physically assaulted as well.
Well, in March 1999 she died under suspicious circumstances in her home in Malta (‘the rock’) when (according to the police) “she accidentally fell from her stairs”. That her death was very convenient for her ex-husband probably wasn’t a matter the police found very interesting: according to sources they never performed an autopsy on her. Kim herself was also a well-known prostitute before she met with Hans. They shared the same friends in high places (among them the Dutch Prince Bernhard) and according to people that knew her she had a lot of dirt on Hans.
As it turned out the brains behind the kidnapping was a well-know n bridge player, which knew Hans Melchers from this shared hobby. Just like his accomplices he comes from Curacao, a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean. And Curacao is also one of the countries that – among tourism – thrives on coke smuggling.
So the question remains: why did they want 300 kilos of coke? The family denied all allegations that they have any connections with drugs whatsoever. Maybe we will hear more of this case in a few weeks after they have interrogated the main suspect. But this really is a mystery case so far.