Three men charged

Charges brought in the Schumacher blackmail case

The public prosecutor's office in Wuppertal has brought charges against three men in the case of attempted blackmail against the family of former Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher. This was announced by the authorities in Wuppertal. A former security employee of the family is said to have made private recordings available for the blackmail. Another man is said to have carried out the blackmail attempt with his son.

The alleged perpetrators are said to have made several calls in an attempt to extort 15 million euros from the Schumacher family - otherwise they would publish data on the darknet. The material used for the crime was allegedly obtained by a man who had worked as a security service provider for the Schumacher family in the past and was also responsible for digitizing private photos. A large number of other items of evidence such as hard disks, USB sticks and cell phones were seized during his arrest.

Record Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher was seriously injured in a skiing accident at the end of 2013. He has not appeared in public since then.

Not the first attempt
The investigation was initiated following a tip-off from Swiss law enforcement authorities. According to the investigators, "technical measures" finally made it clear that the suspected blackmailers were operating from Wuppertal.

This is not the first attempt to blackmail the family of the former racing driver. In 2017, the Reutlingen District Court in Baden-Württemberg sentenced a 25-year-old man for attempting to blackmail Schumacher's wife Corinna Schumacher for 900,000 euros. He had threatened that otherwise something would happen to the children. The man was sentenced to a suspended sentence of 21 months. He had given his real account number in an email to Corinna Schumacher at the time.