Aparecida Schunck, mother-in-law of the Formula One billionaire, reportedly held at ransom amid concerns about safety in Brazil ahead of Rio Olympics

The Brazilian mother-in-law of Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone has reportedly been kidnapped in São Paulo and is being held for ransom.

A ransom of $36.5m (£28m) has been demanded for the release of 67-year-old Aparecida Schunck, who was abducted last Friday night, according to the magazine Veja.



The magazine said that the ransom – apparently a record amount in Brazil – is to be paid in sterling and split into four bags.



The public security secretary in São Paulo declined to divulge details. “We are not releasing any information about this case at the moment. There is nothing we can tell you,” a spokesman said.



Ecclestone is one of the wealthiest figures in the lucrative sport of motor racing with a net worth estimated at £2.4bn. His and his wife Fabiana Flosi met at the Brazilian grand prix in 2009 and they married three years later after he divorced Croatian model Slavica Radić.

The couple, who live in the UK, have declined to comment on the case. The Guardian contacted Formula One management for comment, but had recieved no answer at time of publication.



The reported abduction runs against a trend of falling crime in São Paulo, though kidnappings were common in the early 2000s, when two or three cases were record in the city every week.

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Sports stars were often a target. In 2005, there were three kidnapping cases involving the mothers of football players.



Across the border in neighbouring Argentina, however, kidnapping for ransom has become an epidemic: since 2002 there have been 20 cases in which football players or their relatives have been abducted.



In Brazil the situation has since improved thanks to the establishment of an anti-kidnap division and an improved economy.



But there have been signs that the crime rate may be slipping backwards in recent years as Brazil has slipped into its worse recession for decades.



This has mainly affected local residents, but there are also concerns for foreign visitors and expatriates, particularly in Rio de Janeiro ahead of the Olympics.



Last month, the veteran Australian Paralympics athlete Liesl Tesch and her training partner Sarah Ross were robbed at gunpoint while they were riding bicycles through the Flamengo Aterro. She warned afterwards “Rio is a dangerous place”. In May, three Spanish Olympic sailors were robbed at gunpoint.



To reassure the 500,000 visitors expected for the Games, which begin in less than two weeks, the government has flooded Rio with security personnel – an estimated 65,000 police and 22,000 members of the army, navy and air force. Government ministers said this would ensure peace.

“Today, at the end of a long work of preparation, begins a new stage, when the armed forces ensure the defense and security of the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” the defense minister, Raul Jungmann, told a press conference last week. “Exhausting days will come, but above all, with integrated work, we will allow the Games to take place in peace.”



However, concerns remain, particularly over the threat of terrorism in the wake of recent attacks in Europe. Last week, the Brazilian justice ministry said it had arrested 10 alleged Islamic State sympathisers who are suspected of planning an act of terrorism during the Games. The final suspect was arrested on Monday.

The young suspects – who were described as “absolutely amateur” – had reportedly sworn allegiance to Isis and one of them had tried to acquire a gun in Paraguay.



The police can also sometimes be part of the problem rather than a solution. On Saturday, Jason Lee, a New Zealand jujitsu champion who has been living in Rio for 10 months, said he was kidnapped by two armed military police who took him to a cash machine in an unmarked car, forced him to pay them a “fine” of more than £400 and then warned him not to tell anyone what happened.

“I’m not sure what’s more depressing, the fact this stuff is happening to foreigners so close to the Olympic Games or the fact that Brazilians have to live in a society that enables this absolute b******* on a daily basis,” he wrote on a social media post that was subsequently deleted.