November 15, 2024
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The family of Ferrari racing legend Michael Schumacher accused two men, including a former security guard employee, of trying to extort $15 million from them in exchange for his stolen medical records, according to The Sun.

Schumacher has not been seen or heard from publicly since he suffered a severe brain injury during a skiing accident in Switzerland in 2013, and was placed in a medically induced coma.

The German racer was later moved to the family’s Lake Geneva home, where his wife, Corinna, cares for him with help from a medical team — and his family has kept his recovery extremely private.

Schumacher’s family reported the alleged blackmail plot to Swiss police, which worked with German authorities to arrest Markus F, a former security guard for the Schumacher family, as the main suspect in the case on July 4, according to The Sun.

Markus F allegedly stole two hard drives containing medical data belonging to Schumacher and threatened to release it publicly on the dark web if Corinna didn’t pay $15 million.

The stolen hard drives contained 1,500 files, including photos, videos, medication lists and the contents of Schumacher’s patient file, according to a report by BILD

Authorities also detained another man, Yilmaz T, who worked as a bouncer, and his son Daniel L. as co-suspects in the alleged extortion scheme. Markus T reportedly hired Yilmaz T to help carry out the plot for a small commission.

The Sun said the last names of the accused were not published due to German law.

Yilmaz T is accused of calling and emailing the Schumacher family and demanding money in exchange for the hard drives.

Some of the files were reportedly sent to Schumacher’s family as proof.

Police said they found the suspects through “technical measures,” per The Sun.

“After the advanced investigations, we currently assume that the accused son may have acted more as an accomplice,” senior public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert, spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office, said.

It came after the Schumacher family was awarded $217,000 in May by a German magazine, which claimed on a cover that it had an exclusive interview with the Formula One legend — but inside revealed it was an AI-generated interview.

Last March, Eddie Jordan — a former motorsport team owner, who is a family friend of Schumacher and his wife, Corinna — said she has lived “like a prisoner” for the last decade while keeping his condition private.

Corinna gave some insight into the couple’s home life after the accident and broke down in tears while discussing Schumacher’s condition in a 2022 Netflix documentary about his life.

“Michael is here,” she said. “Different, but he’s here, and that gives us strength, I find.

“We’re together. We live together at home. We do therapy. We do everything we can to make Michael better and to make sure he’s comfortable. And to simply make him feel our family, our bond.

“And no matter what, I will do everything I can. We all will. We’re trying to carry on as a family, the way Michael liked it and still does. And we are getting on with our lives.”

Corinna went on to emphasize the importance of privacy to the couple.

”Private is private,’ as he always said,” she recalled.

“It’s very important to me that he can continue to enjoy his private life as much as possible. ‘Michael always protected us, and now we are protecting Michael.”

In 2022, Corinna and her daughter, Gina, along with former chief executive officer of Ferrari Jean Todt, accepted the State Prize of North Rhine-Westphalia in Cologne on behalf of Schumacher.

Schumacher, considered one of the most successful F1 drivers in racing history, won seven world titles in his career — including five straight from 2000-2004.

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