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Bullion: accusation of pyramid scheme
Photo: Armin Weigel/ DPA
Actually there should have been three tons of gold in safes.
After the insolvency of the gold trader PIM from southern Hesse, only a fraction of this amount was found.
The former managing director of the company has now been sentenced to six years and nine months in prison by the Darmstadt Regional Court.
In its verdict, the chamber considered the allegations of fraud and intentional money laundering against the 51-year-old to be proven.
He has been in custody for more than three years.
Prosecutors had asked for a total of seven and a half years in prison, while the defense had asked for five years and nine months.
The process took almost two years.
From 2016 to September 2019, PIM is said to have concluded supply contracts with customers including bonus promises for gold, but then failed to fulfill them.
Interest is said to have been paid out with the money of newly recruited customers according to a kind of pyramid scheme.
After promising lavish returns, investors had invested thousands or hundreds of thousands of euros in the business model for years.
In the end they are almost empty-handed.
According to public prosecutor Hanno Wilk, some of those affected lose their entire pension scheme.
The process started in 2017 with a former employee who fell out with the accused and filed a complaint.
In September 2019, an arrest warrant against the former managing director was executed and the company went bankrupt.
In its pleading, the defense itself described the complainant as a “criminal”.
Insolvency administrator Renald Metoja was also unable to answer where gold or money remained in the proceedings.
Instead of three tons of precious metal, around 270 kilograms of fine gold and 180 kilograms of jewelery were found.
He spoke of more than 7,000 creditors with legitimate and verified claims of 140 million euros.
With the sale of the goodwill, they would have gotten back a small part of their investments.
Prosecutor Wilk said in his plea that the business model was "planned fraudulently from the start."
The accused was overwhelmed with the management of the company.
Customers were suggested that gold had been stored.
"But that didn't actually happen." The prosecution also sees the accusation of money laundering as proven.
More than three million euros in criminal profits from a business in Frankfurt am Main are said to have been transferred to Turkey via the gold dealer's accounts.
The defense had stated that the deal was not planned from the start as a Ponzi scheme.
The accused recognized in 2017 that the model was not viable.
"He kept the problems to himself," says lawyer Jakob Lehners.
"He took responsibility for the fact that further contracts were concluded and people were harmed." He took the blame and admitted the allegations, says lawyer Schott.
Money laundering was at most careless.
mmq/dpa
