Heiress' two children kidnapped as they watched New Year's fireworks with dad
Two children of Christina Block, 49, a Danish heiress and socialite, have been kidnapped by a group of men who struck while they were watching fireworks with their dad.
Block’s ex-husband Stephen Hensel had taken their children Theodor, 10, and 13-year-old Klara to see the New Year’s Eve firework display in the small town of Gravenstein in Denmark when the thugs struck. Mr Hensel was knocked to the ground by the group of several men, before snatching the children and stuffing them into two German rental cars and making their getaway.
The vehicles are described as a Citroën DS7 Crossback with registration number DN-AV 9551 and a Mercedes A-Class with registration number WI-W 6481 E. The group have not yet been caught and police from Denmark and Germany are investigating the kidnapping incident, Bild reports.
German federal police have also joined in the ongoing hunt with federal cops posting several patrol cars on the Danish/German border, detectives told the paper, which is only 10 miles from where the children were seized. The investigation is currently being handled by state police in Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg, northern Germany, the force said.
The incident may be related to an ongoing row over custody between Block and her ex-husband, Danish police have said. Block and her current partner Gerhard Delling, a famous German TV presenter, have been fighting to have the children returned to Germany ever since Hensel kept both Klara and Theodor with him in Denmark during a 2021 visit.
Tragedy as 13-month-old boy dies after the stolen car he was in crashed
Block’s ex-husband Stephen Hensel had taken their children Theodor, 10, and 13-year-old Klara to see the New Year’s Eve firework display (Alamy Stock Photo)Meanwhile Hensel and Block's eldest daughter, 17-year-old Johanna, is said to live with Hensel in Denmark voluntarily, while 15-year-old Greta lives in Hamburg with Block. Christina Block is heiress to a family fortune worth £260 million built up by her father Eugen Block, a German catering and hospitality magnate.
Eugen’s three children, Dirk, Christina and Philipp each have an eight percent share in his company Eugen Block Holdings, which itself has stakes in several of Eugen's businesses, including the Block House steakhouse chain and the Jim Block burger restaurants.
The situation between Block and Hensel deteriorated last July when the children’s grandmother Christa, 82, died. The three children were not allowed to say goodbye, Block said. She also worried that Christmas gifts would not get through to them, saying “I have sent gifts and letters to the three of them - but I don't know if they will arrive.
“And then I wonder what words my ex-husband will use to give the gifts to my children. Does he present it benevolently or does he denigrate the content? I don't know and that hurts.”
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