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Germany: Charges pressed in Schumacher family blackmail case

September 25, 2024

Prosecutors in Wuppertal have filed charges against three men accused of trying to blackmail Michael Schumacher's family for millions. They allegedly threatened to public compromising data online unless they were paid.

Archive image from 2001 of Michael Schumacher and his wife Corinna celebrating with other Ferrari team members after a race win in Hungary.
It's the second known case of people trying to blackmail Schumacher's wife Corinna or the Schumacher family in recent yearsImage: Oliver Multhaup/dpa/picture-alliance

The public prosecutor's office in the German city of Wuppertal said on Wednesday that it had filed a criminal case in its investigation of the alleged blackmail of F1 star Michael Schumacher's family. 

"The investigations are now complete," chief prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert said. The arrests and the investigation were first announced in June

Schumacher's family, led by his wife Corinna, handle the seven-time F1 World Champion's affairs ever since his serious and debilitating fall while skiing in December 2013.

What's the case about? 

Three men face charges as part of the probe: a former member of the Schumachers' security detail, and a father and son without known connections to the family. 

The former Schumacher employee is accused of making private material available to the other two men in exchange for a "five-figure" sum of money. The 53-year-old is thought to have been tasked, among other things, with digitizing old photos and videos on the family's behalf. At his arraignment hearing, he acknowledged being the source of the leak.

The father and son, aged 53 and 30 and both based in Wuppertal, are then accused of trying to use this data to blackmail the Schumachers.

Schumacher's wife Corinna and daughter Gina-Maria often represent him in public these days, for instance when receiving the state of North Rhine-Westphalia's state prize on his behalf in 2022Image: Christoph Hard/Panama Pictures/IMAGO

Investigators say the accused had two hard drives and four USB-sticks containing private photos and videos from the family collection, some taken before and some after Schumacher's 2013 skiing accident. 

They made repeated phone calls demanding €15 million (roughly $17 million) in exchange for returning the material. In the case of non-payment, they allegedly threatened to publish the data on the dark web. 

A family employee in Switzerland had asked first for proof that the blackmailers possessed what they claimed to. This was sent via an email that was not traceable. But investigators were instead able to trace the calls to the Schumachers to a phone in nearby Kassel, which eventually led them to the three suspects. 

German investigators have made no comments as to the nature of the material used.

What comes next? 

The 53-year-old man from Wuppertal is accused of a particularly serious case of attempted blackmail, his son is accused of being an accomplice to it. 

The former employee of the Schumachers, from nearby Wülfrath, is also accused of being an accessory to attempted blackmail and of violations of personal privacy laws. 

Prosecutors have applied to extend the pre-trial detention of the two older men until a trial begins. The younger man is not in custody at present. 

The decision on whether or not a case will be tried now rests with Wuppertal's district court, or Amtsgericht

The case is not the first instance of attempted blackmail of the Schumachers. In 2017, a 25-year-old man was given a suspended sentence of 21 months in prison for demanding €900,000 euros from Corinna Schumacher. That case was tried in Reutlingen in southwestern Germany. 

Treasures at the National Auto Museum in Hessen

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msh/wd (AFP, dpa, SID)

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