Missing German billionaire Haub: “Traces lead to Russia”

6 comments

1. I always thought London was the center of Russian influence in Europe, but it seems to have been Germany all along.

2. OP, can you provide an executive summary or an translation to English?

3. translated by Google

   It is an unprecedented case: six years ago, former tengel man boss Karl-Erivan Haub disappeared on a ski tour on the Matterhorn. In 2021 he was declared dead by the Cologne District Court. In media reports, however, since then, there have been repeated doubts about the businessman’s death. An RTL team filed a lawsuit against Christian Haub, Karl-Erivans’ brother, in May 2023. The reproach: He had sold a false affidavit, in which he said that he was not showing him that his brother was still alive. The Cologne public prosecutor’s office has now opened an investigation on the basis of a starting point of view. The RTL investigative journalist Liv von Boetticher explains in an interview how the advertisement came and what is to be expected.

   It is an unusual step when a journalist reports someone you report. Why did the team decide to do this in the case of Christian Haub?

   Liv von Boetticher: For three years now, we have been researching intensively about the mysterious disappearance of Karl-Erivan Haub. The evidence weighs heavily that he could deliberately induced his disappearance and that at least parts of his family were aware of it and that, against better knowledge, the Cologne district court and the public said good. We have worked up our research results for a period of three years and had the hope that the public prosecutor’s office will be initiated ex officio on the basis of the evidence overwhelming from our point of view. We had also informed the district court of Cologne as early as 2021 about our strong doubts about the death of Mr Haub. The move to file a criminal complaint against Christian Haub in May 2023 is certainly unusual, but we saw it as the last resort of the election to officially initiate investigations and clarify the background to the mysterious disappearance of Karl-Erivan Haub.

   What exactly are the evidences that the team has?

   In the autumn of 2022, together with a lawyer, I gained insights into photos that show Karl-Erivan Haub in Moscow in February 2021. I know these photos were obtained on behalf of Christian Haub and two internal investigators working for him by an Israeli-American company searching the biometric surveillance system in Moscow for images of Karl-Erivan Haub. To my knowledge, these photos were presented by Christian Haub – at the time when he gave him “no reliable information” to the district court in Cologne in May 2021 in an insurance party to Eides, he was entitled to dispose of “no reliable indications” that his brother was still alive. He also stated that “first” he had commissioned a security service “in November 2020” to get to the bottom of the rumours about his brother’s continued life. However, we have strictly confidential internal documents, according to which the investigation began immediately after the disappearance in 2018.

   What is Christian Haub accused in the ad?

   In our view, it has been proven that Christian Haub gave a false affidavit in May 2021, in which he said that “there were no indication that his brother was still alive.” This statement contributed, among other things, to Karl-Erivan Haub being officially declared dead.

   How long did it take for the public prosecutor Cologne to decide to investigate now?

   We filed the criminal complaint with the Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office in May 2023. However, the public prosecutor’s office initially refused to take up investigations against Christian Haub. We lodged a complaint with the Cologne Prosecutor’s Office against the decision of the public prosecutor’s office, which refused to enter into Christian Haub, in the public prosecutor’s office, with the application to instruct the public prosecutor’s office. By means of interaction with our complaint, the public prosecutor’s office has reassessed the situation legally and has now officially initiated investigations – and it has now also clearly come to a search with an affected company, according to media reports.

   After his disappearance, internal investigators were involved, namely the security chief of Tengelmann and a crisis manager. And these two men have already stated a week after the disappearance that they give a mountain accident as an explanation of only a five percent chance.

   What were the reasons for this assessment?

   The RTL team has confronted the family and Christian Haub with the evidence. How was the reaction?

   Christian Haub never responded specifically to our questions. He did not respond to explicit requests for the photos. There was only one general statement.

   The indications are so strong, but what could be the reason why Karl-Erivan Haub has moved to Russia?

   This will now, of course, take place. I assume that the public prosecutor will seize the opportunity and witnesses will hear in detail. And then we will continue to see.

   Nils Kreimeier spoke with Liv von Boetticher

   The interview first appeared at [capital.de](http://capital.de)

   “Capital” belongs to the same media group as RTL under the umbrella of RTL Germany as RTL.

4. Komischer Typ

5. Don’t be too relaxed…, Putin’s agents are active in any country that is of interest to Russia (Putin). Whether it’s actually FSB agents, or some other organization, these Russian agents are not above kidnapping or executions.

   Several were active in the UK poisoning and killing Putin’s targets. The stuff that they did to Navalny pale in comparison.

6. Why would you fake your death rather than just, I don’t know, get a divorce? Sure you stand to lose a lot of assets in a divorce, and yes you can hide some money before faking your death, but…

   It seems to me you are never going to be able to hide any amount of money that’s close to what you would make it out of a divorce with. So you’d basically be faking your death, and giving up most of your wealth, to live in Moscow with your FSB agent girlfriend?

   Then that FSB girlfriend is probably not going to be your girlfriend anymore now that you are pretend dead, because your usefulness as an FSB asset would mostly cease once you are “dead” and lose your connections, access to information, and money–things the FSB girlfriend started dating you to get access to in the first place.

   The only value I would see in faking your death is if you were looking at criminal charges that would result in serious incarceration. Is this the case here?