Schumacher bodyguard’s ‘plan to extort £12million with medical pics on darkish net’
Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher‘s family have allegedly been targeted in a £12million blackmail plot.
Sickening details of a plan allegedly hatched by Schumacher’s former aide, claim his family were threatened to cough up millions or have personal photos of the sport star shared on the dark web.
The 55-year-old world champion has been hidden from the public view after a skiing accident in 2013 left him seriously disabled and in need of 24-hour care. One of the few men trusted by the star’s wife Corrina was his bodyguard Markus Fritsche who had been recruited 18 months before his skiing accident.
The aide had huge access to the disabled racing driver’s medical procedures, and the family had no reason to question his loyalty. However, when the family told Fritsche he was going to be let go, he is alleged to have become bitter – and decided to plan a blackmail plot leaving him £12million richer.
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Prosecutors in Germany, revealed that Fritsche recruited his long-term friend Yilmaz Tozturkan and his IT expert son to extort the staggering sum from the family who had employed him. It is alleged that the plot is centred around more than 1,000 images, extensive personal medical notes and around 200 videos – allegedly saved on four USB sticks and two hard drives.
The gang are alleged of contacting the family, telling them of the material they had to hand. Unless they were paid a ransom of £12million, they threatened to release the information on the dark web, according to the Daily Mail.
The details of how Fritsche, along with fellow 53-year-old Tozturkan and his son Daniel Lins, 30, carried out the alleged plot will be heard next month when their trial is due to start in Wuppertal, Germany.
Back in September, Wuppertal public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert announced the investigation had been completed, three months after the men had initially been arrested following a joint operation by Swiss and German police. Currently, Tozturkan is held in custody while his son and Fritsche, who lives in Wulfrath near Wuppertal, are out on bail.
At the hearing next month, Judge Birgit Neubert will decide if there is enough evidence for the case to proceed. Four dates have been pencilled in for further hearings, with the last of them in February 2025. Prosecutors want at least four years but because of the amount allegedly demanded, if found guilty, the men could face a longer sentence.
