Kidnappers seized Greece’s top shipping magnate yesterday and reportedly demanded a ransom of €40 million (£36 million).

Pericles Panagopoulos had just set off from his home in the seaside Kavouri district near Athens when three masked armed men stopped his car in a quiet lane, according to a construction worker who claimed to have witnessed the attack.

They smashed the driver’s window with the butt of an AK47 rifle and ordered Mr Panagopoulos, 70, and his chauffeur out of the car, the witness said, and bundled them into two separate vehicles. Minutes later the driver, whose name was not disclosed, was left at a deserted spot near Koropi, a town about five miles from Athens international airport. Despite being hooded and handcuffed he managed to get help at a nearby house. The driver said that the kidnappers set fire to both their getaway vehicles.

The kidnapping was being investigated by antiterrorist police, but a spokesman said it was believed to be the work of a criminal gang. “There is no evidence as yet to show that this was carried out by anybody but common criminals,” police spokesman Panagiotis Stathis said.

The athorities appealed to the kidnappers to treat Mr Panagopoulos kindly because of his frail health. “I hope that the ordeal of this man who has serious health problems will have a good outcome,” Government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros.

Arguably the most successful Greek shipping tycoon since Aristotle Onassis, Mr Panagopoulos kept a low profile. He has a relatively modest house not far from his office. Family friends say that he is not especially security conscious; Greek media reported that he had been without his usual motorcycle bodyguard.

Mr Panagopoulos created Royal Cruise Line in 1971 and sold it 18 years later at a handsome profit. In 1992 he set up Attica Enterprises, now the country’s largest ferry company.

His fortunes soared in 1992 when he had the idea of linking Greece and Italy with high-speed ferries at a time when the war in Yugoslavia had cut off road and rail connections with Western Europe. The SuperFast ferries were a huge success. In 2004 Mr Panagopoulos acquired Blue Star Ferries, a leading island-hopping line.

Yesterday’s kidnapping was the first attack on a Greek shipowner since 1996, when Yannis Peratikos was killed by the radical 17 November group on the grounds that he had put people out of work.

Terrorism in Greece

- In Christmas 1975 Richard Welch, a diplomat and CIA operative, was shot dead outside his Athens home. An organisation calling itself 17 November – from the date of a student uprising against the Colonels’ regime in 1973 – took responsibility. The group’s terror campaign lasted 27 years.

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