A Swiss helicopter firm is at the center of an inquiry for attempting to sell Michael Schumacher's stolen medical documents, French newspaper Le Dauphine Libere reported in the latest development. The Grenoble police had launched an investigation on June 24 immediately after a complaint was lodged by his family claiming that medical documents of the injured Formula One racing champion had been stolen and were being offered for sale.
Schumacher, 45, had been undergoing hospital treatment since sustaining serious head injuries in a skiing accident at the French Alps resort of Meribel last year, but is now out of a drug-induced coma. He was shifted from France's Grenoble University Hospital to a Lausanne hospital in Switzerland in early June to continue his rehabilitation.
"Some parts of a medical report that Grenoble doctors had prepared for their Lausanne counterparts are missing," said a French police officer. According to the Wall Street Journal, the theft was revealed when Schumacher's family was contacted by some media organizations "claiming they had been offered the opportunity to buy his medical file."
The medical records, said to consist of a few pages written by his doctors in the French city of Grenoble, were apparently being offered for sale to media across Europe for $68,000, BBC News reported.
But now, a computer whose IP address has been traced to a Swiss helicopter company, which was sent the medical files while the ex-champion's doctors were considering how to transport him to Lausanne, is being investigated by the prosecutor in Grenoble, French and Swiss media reported. The company's name has not been made public.
Initially, suspicions of the stolen medical files had been blamed on the hospital in Grenoble and the ambulance team which eventually drove him across the border. But before Schumacher was transferred by road, contact had reportedly been made with the helicopter company.
The news emerged last month when a spokesman for the German newspaper Bild, Tobias Frolich, told CNN that the tabloid was among a number of media outlets to be offered Schumacher's alleged medical records, but that "the editorial office decided to reject the offer."
It is thought the latest findings of the French inquiry will now be handed to the authorities in Switzerland, according to BBC News.
