A man shot on Tuesday morning by police in Amsterdam has turned out to be one of Freddy Heineken’s kidnappers, Dutch media report.

Frans Meijer (65), whose injuries are not thought to be life threatening, was taken to hospital where he is waiting to be operated on, the AD reports.

Meijer was chased by a policeman on a motorbike who had come to investigate reports of ‘a suspicious situation’.

The man who, according to unconfirmed reports was accompanied by his son, then drew a gun, upon which the policeman shot him. The two men were both arrested.

Meijer is a well-known gangland figure who, together with Willem Holleeder, Cor van Hout, Jan Boellaard and Martin Erkamps, kidnapped beer magnate Freddy Heineken in 1983.

After his arrest, Meijer was taken to the Pieter Baan centre for a psychological assessment but he managed to escape and flee to Paraguay where he ran a restaurant with his wife.

He was tracked down by crime journalist Peter R. de Vries and arrested in 1995 but could only be extradited to the Netherlands after much legal wrangling in 2002. He said he had burned his share of the 15 million guilder (€7.5m) ransom money.

Meijer was released in 2005 and reportedly returned to Paraguay. In 2011 he and Jan Boellaard went to court to stop the release of a film about the kidnap because, they said, ‘it was a shit film which doesn’t tell the true story’. The judge ruled in favour of the filmmakers.