Two men have been arrested over an alleged plot to blackmail the family of Michael Schumacher for millions of euros.
German newspaper Bild claimed the pair were arrested in Wuppertal, a city in the west of Germany, yesterday.
“We are investigating a case of blackmail to the detriment of a celebrity and have executed arrest warrants in this case,” Wolf-Tilman Baumert, a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office, told the newspaper. “We cannot provide any further information at this time.”
The seven-times Formula 1 champion has not been seen in public since he suffered a serious brain injury at the end of 2013. Schumacher fell while skiing off-piste with his family in France and suffered a “very violent” impact, according to the medical team which operated on him afterwards.
His family have guarded details of his condition closely ever since. They discussed life after his crash in a 2021 documentary on his career in which his wife Corinna said: “Everybody misses Michael, but Michael is here. Different, but he’s here, and that gives us strength, I find.”
Last month another German publication, Die Aktuelle, was told to pay compensation to the Schumacher family for publishing what it claimed was an interview with the former driver. The article appeared to have been generated using an online artificial intelligence platform which is designed to respond to questions as if they were celebrities. The magazine also replaced its editor-in-chief following a storm of negative publicity over the article.
Schumacher raced in F1 between 1991 and 2012, winning his final world championship title with Ferrari in 2004. His son Mick Schumacher spent two years in F1 and is now a reserve driver for Mercedes, as well as racing for Alpine in the World Endurance Championship.
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Formula 1
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