THE scene is the ultra-luxurious Lanserhof health spa, set high in the Austrian Tyrol above Innsbruck. It is the summer of 2007 and an attractive 45-year-old blonde woman is sitting quietly in the July sunshine reading Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist. She is alone - but not for long.
The woman is heiress Susanne Klatten, one of the wealthiest women in the world - with a fortune of ?8.2 billion (R100bn) and a 12.5 percent stake in BMW. She is also about to become the victim of one of the most audacious blackmail plots in modern times.
Klatten is approached by an unassuming, bespectacled man, just one year her junior. His name is Helg Sgarbi and he looks like a slightly geeky accountant from the car company she runs with her brother, Stefan.
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"My favourite book," he says, gesturing at her novel. "You've read it?" she asks. And then he tells her: "I spent my childhood in Brazil, where the author comes from - it's been essential reading. To me, the story has been like a Bible. There's a spiritual message in it. You must believe in a dream and once you believe, you should follow it and you will achieve what you wish for."
Klatten, a mother-of-three, was notoriously reserved. As a member of one of Germany's most famous dynasties, the Quandts, she had spent her life surrounded by bodyguards and secrecy. But she was soon snared by the charms of the softly-spoken Sgarbi.
The very moment that Sgarbi spoke, as Richard Shears reveals in his new book about the affair, she felt comfortable with this well-spoken, clean-cut stranger.
What Susanne Klatten did not know, however, was that she had been specifically targeted by this smooth-talking, Zurich-born con man, a man who had already made a fortune as a professional gigolo and blackmailer, extorting more than £2.2 million from a string of wealthy, older women.
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