A HARD drive feared to be filled with Michael Schumacher’s “intimate” pictures and medical files has gone missing, a German court heard.
Three suspects who allegedly orchestrated a £12m blackmail plot against Schumacher appeared at Wuppertal District Court near Dortmund.
The extortionists have been accused of threatening the Ferrari star’s family and conspiring to leak private pictures of him on the dark web.
The photos were part of a cache of 1500 computer files including personal videos, medication lists and the contents of Schumacher’s patient file.
They were allegedly stolen by a former security guard who worked for the Schumacher family.
All the data was reportedly transferred to two hard drives and four USB sticks.
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However, one of the hard drives which may still hold data on the F1 legend has gone missing.
All three accused face prison sentences if convicted.
Yilmaz T, 53, a former bouncer at the large Grey nightclub in Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, is believed to have had the hard drive.
He is thought to have initiated the extortion, by calling the Schumacher family and claiming to act as a middleman for other parties.
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Yilmaz T revealed he had two hard drives filled with the sporting legend’s medical records and private pictures.
He is alleged to have threatened to leak them on the dark net.
He claimed that he hid the hard drive with family members and friends.
But while cops were able to recover the four USB sticks and one of the hard drives, the second one was not found.
The former bouncer claimed to have received all the data from Markus F, 53, who is said to be the mastermind of the sickening plot.
Markus F worked for Schumacher’s family as a security guard for years.
He allegedly stole the data and passed it on to Yilmaz T.
Markus F has been charged with aiding and abetting extortion and violating personal privacy.
He has two prior convictions, including fraud in 127 cases, and in this case, he is charged with
If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
PLOT’S ‘MASTERMIND’
Yilmaz T’s son, Daniel L, 30, is also accused of supporting him in threatening the family by setting up an encrypted Gmail account and transmitting files.
Yilmaz T claims he joined the plot to help a nurse – who has not yet been named – who also worked for the Schumachers.
He told the court: “Completely honestly I didn’t see it the way it all came out.
“Ok, it went badly, but…I was also given some pressure myself.
“For example, the nurse became unemployed, so she wasn’t in a good financial situation.
“And I was supposed to sort out money to help her out.”
Markus F – who is accused of being the plot’s mastermind – worked as a security expert for Michael Schumacher for nine years.
He is thought to have provided the original computer files which he wrongfully obtained during his work for Schumacher’s family to the ex-bouncer.
Markus F also worked for the German Honorary Consultate in Egypt.
In court, he refused to say a word other than to confirm his name and address.
But in a statement read by his lawyer, he claimed that he had been asked by Corinna to digitalise copies of photos taken of her husband.
Schumacher’s wife Corinna, 55, has filed a motion to protect her husband, which will allow her to exclude the public from the trial if the seven-time world champion’s current state of health is discussed.
The F1 star, who hasn’t been seen or heard from for over a decade after a horror ski crash, has been looked after by his close-knit family since the accident.
The seven-time world champion’s family have kept his health a guarded secret for years.
Markus F was allowed inside the famous Schumacher inner circle for upwards of eight years as Michael’s wife Corinna felt he was a trusted aide.
Earlier this year, the relationship drastically declined as Corinna was forced to sack him due to changes to her husband’s care plan.
This allegedly turned him bitter as he started to hatch a plan to extort the Schumacher family.
What happened to Michael Schumacher?
MICHAEL Schumacher’s life was hanging by a thread 10 years ago as medics tried desperately to keep him alive after a tragic skiing crash that left him with horrific brain injuries.
The F1 legend was given the best possible treatment as he was put into a medically induced coma, had his body temperature lowered and underwent hours of tricky operations on his brain.
Back in 2013, the retired seven-time world champion and his then 14-year-old son set off on the Combe de Saulire ski run in the exclusive French resort of Meribel.
Footage from his helmet camera revealed he was not travelling at excessive speed when his skis struck a rock hidden beneath the snow.
He catapulted forward 11.5ft and crashed into a boulder head first that split his helmet into two and left him needing to be airlifted to hospital for two life-saving operations.
At one point his family were told to brace themselves for the worst case scenario as the situation was much worse than originally believed.
At the time, medics said Schumacher was likely to stay in an induced coma for at least 48 hours as his body and mind recovered.
But the coma ended up lasting 250 days – more than eight months.
After he woke up in June 2014, he was discharged from the hospital and sent to his home in Lake Geneva to get further treatment.
Since then his wife Corinna and his inner circle of friends have expertly avoided almost anything leaking out about his health status.
Only small amounts of information have been released including reports that Schumacher was in a wheelchair but can react to things around him.
In 2019, it was said that Schumacher was set to undergo breakthrough stem cell therapy in a bid to regenerate and rebuild his nervous system.
Renowned France cardiologist Dr Philippe Menasche, who had operated on him previously, was set to carry out the treatment that would see cells from his heart go to his brain.
Following the treatment at the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris, he was said to be “conscious”, although few other details were given about his state.
Schumacher’s family contacted the Swiss authorities to file a report about the alleged blackmail plot, with Swiss police then working alongside German cops to investigate the case.
Cops arrested Markus F, along with Yilmaz T and Daniel L. for the alleged blackmail plot earlier this year.
Authorities said they were able to track down the alleged extortionists through “technical measures”.
Senior public prosecutor Wolf-Tilman Baumert, spokesman for the Wuppertal public prosecutor’s office, said: “After the advanced investigations, we currently assume that the accused son may have acted more as an accomplice.”
Speaking for the first time at Wuppertal District Court, Yilmaz T said he had done nothing wrong – it was all to help out a poor nurse.
He told the court: “I contacted the family. I told them that I could get the data and that I would then call back in 3 days and see if they were interested.”
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Yilmaz T disclosed that the nurse, who has not yet been named, had also worked for the Schumacher family.
However, Yilmaz T later confessed that he had never even met the nurse and that he had only been shown a picture of her by Markus F.
Source: Motorsport - thesun.co.uk
