Fears grow for banker’s kidnap wife

POLICE were desperately searching for the missing wife of a German banker yesterday after what appeared to be a botched kidnapping.

Maria Boegerl, 54, was taken from her home in the town of Heidenheim last Wednesday.

Shortly afterwards the kidnappers demanded a €300,000 ransom which her husband paid, but it was never collected.

Despite hundreds of tips, police said yesterday they had no new clues as to her whereabouts, five days after she disappeared.

Her husband Thomas was able to briefly speak with her after she was snatched, and she told him her life was in danger.

He placed the ransom money at the side of the A7 highway between Heidenheim and Aalen-Oberkochen – marking it with a German flag as he had been ordered – but the kidnapper never picked it up, police said.

The family is now offering a €50,000 reward for any information that leads to Maria Boegerl’s release, and police said they have received more than 500 tips on two special hotline telephones that are staffed around the clock.

Their main hope is tracking down a bald salesman who was going door-to-door selling products to raise money for the blind, who was reportedly in the area of the Boegerl home at the time she was taken and may have witnessed the crime, police said.

Boegerl manages a local public banking group, Kreissparkasse Heidenheim, which has 34 branches.