November 04, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1429

BERLIN, Nov 3: Germany’s richest woman, BMW heiress Susanne Klatten, was in the spotlight on Monday after reports alleged that a former lover tried to blackmail her using videos of their steamy hotel room encounters.

Klatten — who with stakes in automaker BMW and chemicals giant Altana is reputed to have a personal fortune of 10 billion dollars — first met Helg Sgarbi last year at a hotel bar, local press reports said.

The 46-year-old married mother-of-three fell for the smooth-talking 41-year-old Swiss’s charms, meeting him in inexpensive hotels in BMW’s home city of Munich over following weeks, the popular Bild newspaper reported.

Sgarbi used his liaison to extract money from his super-rich conquest, telling her that gangsters were after him for running over the child of a US mafioso and that he needed 10 million dollars to save his neck. —AFP