A nightclub bouncer who masterminded a plot to blackmail Michael Schumacher for £12 million has been jailed for three years.
Yilmaz Tozturkan, 53, was arrested along with two other men after hard drives containing private pictures, videos and medical records of the F1 legend were stolen.
He was assisted in the plot by his adult son Daniel Lins, 30, and Markus Fritshe, an ex-bodyguard for the Schumacher family who planned to betray his former employers.
The group planned to release 1,500 confidential files onto the dark web unless they received their money, believed to contain sensitive information about the former racing champion following his life-changing ski accident in 2013.
Schumacher is believed to have suffered a serious brain injury following the accident and has not been seen in public since, with his family and inner circle taking extremely strict measures to protect his privacy.
Tozturkan, who is currently behind bars for an unrelated crime, was handed an additional three-year sentence after confessing to the crime.
Lins was handed a six-month suspended sentence after also confessing to the crime while Fritsche, who denied any involvement in the plot, was handed a two-year suspended sentence.
Fritsche was accused of spying on the family and supplying blackmailers with pictures and material, which prosecutors claimed he sold for a five-figure sum.
The father was given an email by Schumacher’s office to send the photos as proof that he had them, and soon brought his son into the mix.
But the pair were arrested on June 9 when they were stopped by police in a parking lot and quickly confessed to the crime.
Pleading guilty at the start of the trial, Tosturkan said: ‘I am very sorry and ashamed. I will take responsibility for what I have done.’
He denied blackmailing the family, and instead claimed they were offering the family a ‘business deal’
Despite the arrest, the Schumacher family is still concerned that some of the confidential material may still be missing, despite several searches of the defendant’s property.
Schumacher’s lawyer Thilo Damm revealed the family were considering an appeal against the length of the defendant’s ‘lenient’ sentences.
Damm told the court: ‘We do not agree with everything the court said. You can rest assured that we will exhaust all legal possibilities at our disposal.
‘We don’t know where the missing hard drive is … so there is the possibility of another threat through the back door.’
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