Three arrested in BMW heiress blackmail plot

THREE men have been arrested in Germany over a failed attempt to blackmail the country’s richest woman, BMW heiress Susanne Klatten, prosecutors said.

Klatten, 47 went to the police in mid-June immediately after her office received a letter from the would-be blackmailers, said Thomas Steinkraus-Koch, a spokesman for prosecutors in Munich.

They demanded €800,000 and a BMW X5 sport utility vehicle or else they threatened to sell to the Italian press secretly recorded videotapes of her trysts with a Swiss man, Helg Sgarbi.

Steinkraus-Koch said there was no indication the suspects had any connection to Sgarbi, who was convicted earlier this year of defrauding Klatten.

The three suspects were nabbed in Duisburg after investigators, posing as people close to Klatten, set up a meeting with the men.

Sgarbi, dubbed “the Swiss gigolo” was sentenced in March to six years in prison for defrauding Klatten of €7 million and attempting to blackmail her for tens of millions more.