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Fynn Kliemann in November 2020
Photo: Hauke Christian Dittrich / dpa
The public prosecutor's office in Stade has temporarily suspended the investigation against influencer Fynn Kliemann against payment of a fine.
Both sides had agreed that Kliemann would pay 20,000 euros to non-profit organizations, said the spokesman for the public prosecutor's office.
As soon as the money was received, the procedure was discontinued.
The public prosecutor had investigated the musician and businessman Kliemann after a TV report by the satirist Jan Böhmermann.
In addition to a suspicion of fraud, the proceedings were primarily about the suspicion of violating the law against unfair competition, it said.
"I'm very happy about the decision," said Kliemann of the "world" in a written statement.
The fact that the allegations of fraud are "false" is very important to him personally.
Irrespective of this, he "didn't do everything right".
"I talked everything nice to myself, lost focus and made the wrong decisions." Kliemann's press attorney regretted media "prejudice and stigmatization".
The investigations against Kliemann's ex-business partner, Tom Illbruck, are continuing.
The result is open, said the spokesman for the public prosecutor's office.
Illbruck told the dpa news agency that the public prosecutor's office had also offered him to drop the case in return for a fine.
But he still refuses.
"I would like to have it fully clarified that the allegations are not legally tenable."
Kliemann, who ran an event location near Bremen, and a textile company from North Rhine-Westphalia were criticized in May 2022 by the TV report on ZDF.
At the heart of the article was the question of whether the country of production was deliberately kept secret when the textile company did business with a wholesaler in 2020 - masks came from Asia instead of Europe.
aeh/dpa