Hollywood Celebs’ Gossips

Susanne Klatten extorted for “sex video”

Meet Susanne Klatten, the car-marker BMW heir and Germany’s richest woman who was blackmailed by Swiss gigolo Helg Sgarbi. Seen here are a few Susanne Klatten, Helg Sgarbi pictures.

Susanne Klatten was born Susanne Hanna Ursula Quandt on 28 April 1962 in Bad Homburg in Germany. Susanne’s father Herbert Werner Quandt [wikipedia], a German industrialist, resurrected BMW when it was at the point of bankruptcy.

Upon Mr. Herbert’s death in 2007, Susanne inherited large stakes from his father in pharmaceutical and chemicals manufacturer Altana and BMW, subsequently becoming the richest woman in Germany. Klatten’s wealth is estimated by Forbes magazine at almost $10 billion, making her the 68th richest person in the world.

Even though, Susanne lived a quiet life which was abruptly ended when she was exposed late in 2008 as a victim of the multi-millions extortion from ex-lover Helg Sgarbi, or Helg Rulssak, in the media stories over the world’s newspapers.

Helg Sgarbi: Susanne Klatten Ex-lover

Susanne Klatten married to her husband Jan Klatten, who was a BMW engineer, in 1990. They have three children and live in Munich. Whether the marriage between Susanne and Jan was problematic or not, the 47-year-old woman met Helg Sgarbi at a spa in Austria in 2007 and later became lovers.  Susanne reportedly had gave new luxury cars including a Ferrari, a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce to Hegl.

Susanne secretly had sexual rendezvous with Helg at luxury hotels seen in Monte Carlo, Munich among other European cities, not realizing the 44-year-old Swiss-Italian was a villain and had filmed their intimade moments on the hidden cameras under the corrportation with Ernano Barretta, 63, an Italian Hotel operator.

Possibly trusting in what he told to her that he was “an extorted subject of Italia mafia,” Susanne Klatten gave Hegl up to €7.5m to “settle the issue.”

….Mrs Klatten said he had been “charming, attentive and at the same time he seemed very sad”.

“That stirred a feeling in me that we had something in common,” she said.

They began an affair and in September that year, he persuaded Mrs Klatten to give him nearly 7m euros by saying he needed to pay off the family of a girl he had injured in car accident in Florida.

The reclusive 46-year-old mother-of-three handed the money to him in a cardboard box in the basement of a Holiday Inn hotel in Munich. [BBC]

Susanne Klatten, BMW Heir (Stern.de)

Hegl, in fact, a man who had blackmailed some other rich European women, finally showed his true color when threating to release intimate films unless she pays him 14 million euros. To this point, Susanne Klatten had no choice but to report the police. Consequently, Hegl Sgarbi was arrested in Austria (later extradited to Germany) in 2008, while Ernano Barretta, 63, was nabbed in Italy the same year.

Mr Sgarbi is said to have met Mrs Klatten in 2006 and they became lovers. They met in Monte Carlo and elsewhere for sex, he said, but they were not alone. Every time they checked into a hotel room, Mr Barretta is said to have booked the room next door. When they walked on the street together, Mr Barretta was there with his video camera to record it. When they went to bed, he contrived to film those private moments, too.

During one of these trysts, Mr Sgarbi is said to have unloaded a terrifying personal problem on to his girlfriend: he told her that, while travelling in the United States, he had been involved in a car smash during which a child had died. The child’s parents were members of the Italian-American mafia, they blamed him for the death and they wanted millions in compensation, or Mr Sgarbi was in trouble. Mrs Klatten gave him €7.5m “to get the mafia off his back”.

But Mr Sgarbi, like the rest of the world, knew Mrs Klatten was worth far more than that. So in the autumn of 2007 he allegedly contacted her again and this time asked for €49m. The “dead Mafia child” was no longer an issue. Now he revealed that he had videos of them making love which he would make public if she did not pay up.

Ms Klatten is not a senior BMW executive on account of her name alone, and she succeeded in haggling down to €14m. Which she had no intention of paying. She arranged a rendezvous, but when Mr Sgarbi turned up to collect the money he met police, with a warrant for his arrest. Investigators learnt that Mr Sgarbi had been on the telephone all that morning with Mr Barretta, who became the investigation’s next target. [Indipendent, November 3, 2008]

On 9th March 2009, Sgarbi pleaded guilty in Munich state court to the blackmaill charges which accused him of  fraud, attempted fraud and attempted extortion. He apologized to those ladies who victimised before, saying “I deeply regret what has happened and apologized to the aggrieved ladies in this public hearing,” according to BBC.

Reuter’s report is saying prosecutor Thomas Steinkraus-Koch has proposed a tougher sentence of nine years in prison for Hegl Sgarbi who on the other side was a Swiss army lieutenant and a specialist in mergers and acquisitions from a glowing job role in investment bank Credit Suisse.

Links: Susanne Klatten @ Wikipedia BMW Automobiles–Website of BMW AG