Former security officer arrested in Schumacher extortion case

The former employee was arrested on Thursday in Wülfrath, western Germany, the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office said.

“The suspect is said to have previously worked as a security guard for the Schumacher family and was responsible, among other things, for digitizing private photos,” it said.

Officers also seized evidence from the suspect’s apartment, including hard drives, USB sticks and mobile phones.

The identity of the youngest suspect was established by one of the other two defendants, who stated that the former bodyguard had been promised a commission for passing on “the data used for blackmail.”

Schumacher, a seven-time Formula One world champion, has not been seen in public since he suffered a serious brain injury in a skiing accident in the French Alps in 2013.

Investigators in Germany were informed of the blackmail attempt by authorities in Switzerland, where Schumacher has been cared for in his family home since the accident.

The father-son couple arrested on June 19 had contacted family representatives and claimed to have access to files that the Schumachers “did not want published,” the public prosecutor’s office said earlier this week.

“In order to prevent the files from being published on the Internet, the perpetrators demanded a payment in the millions,” it said.

To prove that they were not bluffing, the suspects are said to have given the family “individual files”.

The investigation into the case is ongoing, the public prosecutor’s office said. If the three men are found guilty of the extortion plot, they face up to five years in prison.

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