Criminals are said to have attempted to blackmail the family of former Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher. This was announced by the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office, which is investigating the case. The perpetrators claimed to family employees that they had files that the family might be interested in not publishing, a spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office said on Monday. They demanded a payment in the millions – otherwise they would publish the data on the darknet. The perpetrators sent some files to the family as proof.
Through “technical measures” it was possible to determine that the suspected blackmailers were operating from Wuppertal. Two men from Wuppertal, aged 53 and 30, were arrested as suspects – father and son. Both are currently on probation in another case.
The two main suspects were arrested on June 19 in a supermarket parking lot in Groß-Gerau in Hesse and are currently in custody.
At the end of last week, investigators announced that arrests had been made in connection with a blackmail case “to the detriment of a celebrity.” However, investigators did not initially disclose the celebrity’s name. The “Bild” newspaper was the first to report on an attempted blackmail of the Schumacher family.
The Formula 1 record world champion was seriously injured in a skiing accident at the end of 2013. He has not appeared in public since then.
In 2017, the Reutlingen District Court in Baden-Württemberg convicted a then 25-year-old man who had attempted to blackmail Schumacher’s wife. He received a suspended sentence at the time.