Dutch millionaire daughter sought

Police still have no information on Ms Melcher's whereabouts

Dutch police say a hunt is under way for the 37-year-old daughter of a millionaire businessman, whom they fear has been kidnapped.

Police said gunmen abducted Claudia Melchers from the family home in a wealthy area of Amsterdam two days ago.

Hans Melchers, one of the richest men in the Netherlands, is the owner of a chemical company.

The company has denied media reports in recent years that it supplied chemicals to Iraq in the 1980s.

Armed men

Police said armed men broke into the house and bound and gagged a neighbour who was present there.

But they did not harm Ms Melchers' two children, one of whom freed the neighbour after the gunmen left.

The police has published a photograph of the woman and appealed for information regarding her whereabouts.

"A wide investigation has been launched because the police suspect that she has been kidnapped by the perpetrators," said a police statement quoted by the AFP news agency.

The house has been sealed off by the police.

"At this moment, we don't know where she is," police commissioner Willem Woelders told Dutch NOS television.

'Middle East dealings'

It is still not clear whether the possible kidnapping was related to the dealings of the company owned by Ms Melchers' father, whose fortune is estimated at over $500m.

The company, Melchemie Holland BV, has been accused in the local media of illegally supplying banned chemicals to Iraq two decades ago.

But the company has denied violating export restrictions intentionally and said that it recalled the shipment before it reached Iraq, the Associated Press reports.

It also paid a fine and called the shipment a 'one time mistake', in a statement posted on its website, the agency adds.

Kidnapping for ransom is now uncommon in Netherlands.

A 16-year-old son of a Dutch businessman was kidnapped two years ago by a man who demanded a $12.28m ransom.

However, the boy was freed by the police within a week. Several similar abductions took place in the country in the 1980s.