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Berlin (ANTARA News) - German prosecutors have opened an investigation into allegations that the country's richest woman, Susanne Klatten, was blackmailed for millions of euros by an ex-lover, a spokesman and media said Sunday.

"We have been carrying out an investigation for several months," Christian Schmidt-Sommerfeld, a spokesman for Munich prosecutors, told AFP.
Italian authorities also opened an inquiry, he said.

Klatten, who holds a large stake in automaker BMW and Altana specialty chemical company, allegedly paid 7.5 million euros to a Swiss Helg Sgarbi to stop him from publishing compromising photos and videos of the couple's relationship, the German tabloid Bild am Sonntag reported.

The 41-year-old suspect was taken into custody by German authorities some weeks ago, Schmidt-Sommerfeld said.

The heiress to the Quandt family fortune and mother of three children "filed a complaint for fraud and blackmail in January 2008 with a Munich court," he added.

Schmidt-Sommerfeld said that Sgarbi started blackmailing Klatten from August 2007 when he asked for a loan of several million euros, before demanding a much higher "ransom" for the footage -- as much as 40 million euros, according to German media reports.

Italian media allege that Sgarbi and Klatten met in a Munich hotel, while a 63-year-old Italian man filmed the couple having sex from a next-door bedroom.

Klatten has a personal fortune of 7.8 billion euros, according to German's Manager Magazin.

As yet no photos or videos have been released.

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