Freddy Heineken
Age: 78
Summary: Dutch
flamboyant beer magnate and businessman considered as one of the
richest people in the Netherlands with a net worth of 9.5 billion
guilders who built the Amsterdam brewer Heineken International (which
was bought in 1864 by his grandfather Gerard Adriaan Heineken) into one
of the world's biggest beer companies and created the green bottle that
helped Heineken become synonymous with the best-selling imported beer
in the United States for many years before it was dethroned by Corona
of Mexico in 1998, but whose life was turned upside down in November
1983 when he and his chauffeur were kidnapped as the two men were
chained to neighboring concrete cells for three weeks before the Dutch
police raided a warehouse in Amsterdam and freed them after a $10
million ransom was paid during the rescue.
Cause of Death: Pneumonia
Born: November 4, 1923
Died: January 3, 2002
Location: Noordwijk, the Netherlands
