Crime - Schumacher blackmail: suspected accomplice arrested
In the case of the attempted extortion of the family of former Formula-1 World Champion Michael Schumacher, the police have arrested a suspect. He is a 52-year-old man who had worked as a security guard for the family, stated Oberstaatsanwalt Wolf-Tilman Baumert in Wuppertal. The man was arrested on Thursday in Wülfrath near Wuppertal. A large number of further evidence was secured at the time. These will now be evaluated.
The investigators had arrested the two alleged extortionists of the family about two weeks ago. According to the prosecutor's office, the 53-year-old man and his 30-year-old son had private photos of the Schumacher family. The discovered photo files concerned the private sphere of the Schumacher family.
During the investigation into where the two obtained the photos from the private life and immediate environment of the family, they eventually came across the 52-year-old. Michael Schumacher had been severely injured in a skiing accident at the end of 2013. Since then, he has not appeared publicly.
Demand for payment in millions
The perpetrators had claimed through intermediaries to have data in their possession that the family might be interested in not being made public. They allegedly demanded a payment in millions - otherwise, they would make the data public in the Darknet. As evidence, they had sent some files to the family.
The investigative proceedings were initiated based on a tip from criminal prosecution authorities in Switzerland and were originally being conducted by the prosecutor's office in Kassel. Through "technical measures," the investigators were able to determine, according to their information, that the alleged extortionists were operating from Wuppertal. The two 53 and 30-year-old suspects were arrested on June 19 on a supermarket parking lot in the Hessian Groß-Gerau. The two are known to the police, according to the investigators, as they are currently under investigation in another matter.
Further extortion attempt
This is not the first attempt to extort the family of the former racing driver. In 2017, the Reutlingen District Court in Baden-Württemberg sentenced a 25-year-old man because he had tried to extort Corinna Schumacher for 900,000 euros. He had threatened that otherwise, something would happen to the children. The man was sentenced to a probation period of 21 months.
- The suspect in the attempted blackmail of Michael Schumacher's family, who served as a security guard for them, hails from Germany, specifically from Hesse.
- Michael Schumacher, the Formula 1 World Champion, was subjected to a crime in Switzerland, where he was severely injured in a skiing accident in 2013.
- The police in North Rhine-Westphalia arrested the 52-year-old suspect in Wülfrath, near Wuppertal, and secured a substantial amount of evidence related to the crime.
- Despite being a German, the main operations of the two extortionists, the 53-year-old and his son, were suspected to be based in Wuppertal.
- The family of the Formula-1 champion, Michael Schumacher, has been a target of extortion attempts in the past as well, with a 25-year-old man convicted of trying to extort Corinna Schumacher in Baden-Württemberg in 2017.
