Three men are charged after Michael Schumacher blackmail plot as legal chiefs claim suspect demanded £12.5MILLION in threat to release personal photos and videos
- Three men were arrested earlier this year after an alleged £12.5m blackmail plot
- A ex-security guard allegedly sold private photos of Schumacher to the others
- Those two then allegedly threatened to spill the photos on to the dark web
Three men have been charged in Germany after being arrested for an alleged £12.5million blackmail plot against Michael Schumacher earlier this year.
Prosecutors claim the chief suspect, 53, threatened to release personal videos and photos and demanded the princely sum from the Formula One legend's family.
Three suspects have been arrested this year. In June, bouncer Yilmaz T, 53, and his 30-year-old son from Wuppertal, were caught after allegedly claiming to have sensitive files containing images of the F1 legend after his near-fatal skiing crash in 2013.
In July, the Schumacher family's former security guard, also 53, was arrested after 'masterminding' the plot.
Schumacher, 55, has not been seen in public since his 2013 accident which left him in a coma for almost six months after heavy bleeding and bruising on his brain.
Three men have been charged after being arrested in an alleged £12.5m blackmail plot against Michael Schmacher and his family
The seven-time world champion has not been seen in public since he suffered a serious brain injury in the brutal skiing accident in the French Alps
Suspects Yilmaz T, 53 (pictured), and his 30-year-old son allegedly claimed to have sensitive files containing images of the F1 legend after his near-fatal skiing crash in 2013
Yilmaz T, the chief suspect, is accused of ringing the Schumacher family several times this summer to demand money from them, allegedly threatening to otherwise spill the sensitive images onto the 'dark web'.
He faces charges of atttempted blackmail and could face a maximum jail term fo 15 years, though, due to the attempt not being carried through, this may be reduced. His son is charged as an accomplice to blackmail.
The son, 30, is alleegdly behind creating an untraceable email address from which photos were sent to the family as blackmail evidence.
Meanwhile, the family's former security guard is suspected of having converted the photos to digital form and sold them to Yilmaz T and his son for a 'six-figure' fee.
The two men then transferred 'individual files' to the family to prove they had access to documents about the F1 star as part of their threat, investigators claim.
A senior prosecutor in Wuppertal confirmed to German media that a preliminary evaluation of data sets obtained in searches of the bouncer's apartment contained 'photos relating to the Schumacher family's private life'.
German investigators were tipped off about the blackmail plot by authorities in Switzerland, where Schumacher has been cared for at the family home since the accident.
'Technical measures' made it possible to trace the alleged extortionists to Wuppertal, prosecutors said.
Suspects threatened to release private photos taken after his 2013 crash if the family did not pay up £12.5m
The two suspects, who were on probation in another case, were arrested by police on June 19 in a supermarket parking lot in Gross-Gerau, south of Frankfurt.
Authorities searched eight properties, as well as the main residences of the two men, seizing 'several data storage devices'.
