FORMULA ONE supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s mother-in-law has reportedly been kidnapped in Brazil.
According to Brazilian magazine Veja, Aparecida Schunck, 67, was taken on Friday in the neighbourhood of Interlagos, Sao Paulo, with her kidnappers said to be demanding a ransom of 120 million Brazilian reals ($AU48.75 million).
The report says it is the highest ransom demand in the country’s history.
Schunck is the mother of Ecclestone’s third wife Fabiana Flosi who met the 85-year-old through her work on the Brazilian Grand Prix.
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READ NOWThe couple met in 2009 and married in 2012.
Kidnapping was common in Brazil a decade ago with several people seized each day, often for sums of just a few hundred dollars. A crackdown by police, including the formation of a special anti-kidnap division, reduced the number considerably, and the crime has become much rarer.
Brazil is currently in the midst of its worst economic crisis in almost a century.
News of the kidnap comes a day after New Zealander Jason Lee said he’d been kidnapped by men in police uniforms and forced to hand over money withdrawn from ATMs in Brazil’s Olympic host city Rio de Janeiro.
It is not the first time Ecclestone’s family has been the target of kidnappers.
In 2012 it was reported that a dental technician threatened to kidnap his daughter Tamara in a $AU400,000 plot.
Martin Peckham from London pleaded guilty to the threats which are said to have been made between June 19 and July 2011 and was jailed for five years.
Forbes magazine estimates the net worth of the F1 boss — and family — as $3.1 billion. Born the son of a fisherman in Suffolk, England, Ecclestone built Formula One from a niche sport into a global phenomenon after buying the Brabham Racing team in 1971.