Two letter bombs exploded on Wednesday at two separate locations in the Netherlands but nobody was hurt in the incidents, which police blamed on an extortionist who had demanded payment in bitcoin.

Both explosions were minor, one at an ABN Amro bank mail-sorting office in Amsterdam and the other 225 km (140 miles away) in a mail room of Japanese electronics group Ricoh, police said. No arrests have been made.

"The police believe the most likely scenario is that the letter discovered on Wednesday was one of several letter bombs sent to locations across the country," they said in a statement, referring to the Amsterdam incident.