Millions of fraud at Axel Springer: criminal gang around ex-manager accused in Berlin

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Axel Springer Verlag in Berlin: Ex-employees are said to have diverted millions with the help of bogus invoices

Photo: DPA

The accusation: Several hundred criminal offenses and damage amounting to over ten million euros.

The public prosecutor's office in Berlin has brought charges against the ex-head of logistics at Axel Springer Verlag,

(57), and six alleged accomplices.

The confirmed spokesman

manager magazin.

According to the court, the lawsuit is pending in the 19th Grand Criminal Chamber.

Günther are accused of commercial and gang fraud as well as infidelity in a total of 293 cases.

It is about a suspected fraud system that is based mainly on bogus invoices for shipping services.

Günther's lawyer

on request that his client wanted to comment on the allegations in court.

manager magazin reported in detail on the case in the 7/2018 issue.

In consultation with Springer executives, freight forwarders and other entrepreneurs are said to have regularly issued dummy invoices between 2003 and 2013 for services that they had not performed.

The service providers then transferred some of the money they received to Günther or his wife at the time.

An apartment on Potsdamer Platz in Berlin is also said to have been indirectly financed in this way.

Günther admitted the existence and functioning of the fraud system at the request of manager magazin.

The investigations of the public prosecutor

(file number 242 Js 139/14) and the State Criminal Police Office into the case lasted several years and go back to a complaint from Axel Springer SE in January 2014.

This included invoices for services not rendered "totaling 11.43 million euros".

Günther and his alleged accomplices were noticed in March 2013 by a "whistleblower".

Springer then gave him notice without notice.

Günther made serious allegations against former superiors at Axel Springer in the manager magazin.

He claimed, for example, that he had been advised to "book services for the company via bogus invoices".

At the moment he does not comment on it.

At the time, Springer let it be known that the perpetrators were dealing with "breathtaking protective claims".

For Springer boss

(57), who has been running the group since 2002, the court proceedings should definitely be exciting.