Freddy Heineken was kidnapped for 35 million guilders, and his only daughter inherited control of the brewery

Freddy Heineken joined his grandfather's brewery in 1941, when the family no longer controlled it. He bought back shares and set up Heineken Holding, which owns 50.005 percent of Heineken N.V., while he kept a majority of the holding. On 9 November 1983 he and his driver Ab Doderer were seized outside his Amsterdam office. The family paid 35 million guilders. Police found both men alive in a shed at a timber yard in the harbour after a tip^†. By 6 December 1983 police had recovered about 29 million guilders, much of it buried in barrels in woods near Zeist; about 6 million was still missing. Willem Holleeder and Cor van Hout each received 11 years in 1987^†. Van Hout was shot dead in Amstelveen on 24 January 2003^†. In July 2019 an Amsterdam court gave Holleeder life for five murders, including Van Hout's^†. Heineken died of pneumonia at home in Noordwijk on 3 January 2002, aged 78. His only child, Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken, who lives in London, inherited his stake. The family owns 88.67 percent of L'Arche Green, which owns 53.171 percent of the holding, so it controls Heineken with under a quarter of its capital^†. Her son Alexander de Carvalho was proposed for the holding's board in 2013^†. In April 2024 NRC reported that she used offshore structures to minimise Dutch dividend tax^†. In 2026 she remains the controlling shareholder; Forbes estimated her fortune at $14.1 billion in 2024.