Police in São Paulo have freed the Brazilian mother-in-law of the Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone, 10 days after she was kidnapped. She was uninjured and it appears that none of a reported $36.5m (£28m) ransom has been paid.
Aparecida Schunck, 67, the mother of Fabiana Flosi, was freed from an apartment on the outskirts of the city. Police, who located the site by monitoring phone calls between the kidnappers and the family and tracking Whatsapp messages, told the BBC that two men had been arrested.
According to some accounts Schunck was found tied up, but a one-paragraph statement from the police gave few details: “She was unharmed. Two men were arrested at the hideout near the city of Cotia. The operation continues.”
Schunck looked weary but unharmed as she spoke briefly to waiting press, before getting into a police car to be reunited with members of her family. “I just ask that the crooks do not kidnap anyone else in São Paulo because they will be arrested,” she said.
Flosi and Ecclestone, who married in 2012 after meeting at the 2009 Brazilian Grand Prix, had remained outside Brazil on police advice. Ecclestone was told his presence might be counterproductive, after he offered to bring in a private security firm to help in the search.
Schunck was kidnapped after two men got into her home, behind a high security wall, after arriving in a van claiming to be making a delivery. The ransom demand was £28m – a record in Brazil – to be delivered packed into seven bags.
The safe release of such a high-profile kidnap victim will be a relief to the Brazilian authorities, already facing organisational, health and security concerns over the Olympic Games, which start in Rio de Janeiro in less than a week.
Kidnap had been a huge and usually unsolved crime in Brazil, particularly in São Paulo, the country’s largest city and the centre of commerce, for decades.
Although a dedicated anti-kidnap police taskforce has reduced the crime drastically over the past 15 years, many wealthy families are still believed to pay up quietly to recover a family member, for fear of a tragic outcome if the police are alerted.
Despite the country’s dire finances, the authorities have promised to put 85,000 troops and soldiers on patrol during the Olympics to ensure the safety of audiences and competitors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
