A body found washed up on a beach on Terschelling in the northern Netherlands was identified as that of the 81-year-old German millionaire Kai Wunsche who disappeared from a cruise ship earlier this month, Dutch police announced on Thursday, August 26.
The body had been discovered Tuesday morning, August 24, on Terschelling, one of a chain of islands in the Wadden Sea off the coast of the Netherlands.
Police in the Friesland province said in a tweet that investigations had revealed it was an 81-year-old man from Germany who went missing from a cruise ship on August 16.
There were no indications of a crime and the police investigation was closed.
Dutch rescue boats, supported by a couple of helicopters and an airplane sought the millionaire for hours after he went missing but later gave up without finding any trace of him.
While the identity of the man was not released and neither police nor the coast guard identified the cruise ship he went missing from, on August 20, 2021, several major global media outlets reported that the 81-year-old Kai Wunsche was presumed dead after falling overboard from the Hapag-Lloyd Cruises' ship MS Europa. The overboard occurred on August 16, while the ship was navigating close to Texel Island (North-Holland, The Netherlands).
Wuensche was reported missing by his husband.
The ship was en route from Hamburg Germany to Antwerpen Belgium, but the famous millionaire was reported missing before reaching Antwerp.
The shipowner (Hapag-Lloyd) confirmed the incident but commented they had no details on the circumstances around Kai Wunsche's disappearance.
Kai Wunsche (1939-2021) was the owner of Joop GmbH (1986-founded German luxury fashion brand JOOP!/clothing and cosmetics) and one of the owners of Wunsche Group (1934-founded group of companies represented in 10+ countries worldwide and specializing in foods, e-commerce, electronics, fashion clothing and cosmetics, services). Besides "Joop!", Wunsche Group previously also owned the brands "CINQUE" and "Jean Pascale".
For other MS Europa accidents and incidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.