He always had a 500-euro note with him to feel rich: A man who was first a fitness trainer and then became a real estate agent has been convicted of investment fraud on a large scale.
The District Court of Munich I has sentenced a former investor to a prison term of nine years and three months for investment fraud in the hundreds of millions. A court spokesman said on Wednesday.
Accordingly, the finance broker, formerly known in stock exchange and financial forums, cheated a total of 6,894 investors by 164 million euros in the first half of the past decade. Some customers are counted several times because they had invested in several of the eleven funds.
The verdict was preceded by an agreement between the prosecution and defense, but more than nine years’ imprisonment is considered very high in cases of fraud. The 48-year-old had made a confession, which the chamber credited him in his favor. The investigation had become public years ago, and in 2017 the broker rejected the allegations in a newspaper interview.
The broker sold funds on the gray capital market and, according to the indictment, had promised his customers high returns of up to 17.5 percent. According to the judgment, it was a pyramid scheme – a scam in which the organizers always recruit new customers and initially use their deposits to pay out fictitious profits to investors. Some customers are said to have invested more than 200,000 euros. The man should not have acted alone, according to the court spokesman, a business partner is not in Germany.
The now convicted financial broker had testified extensively in court and described how he first trained as a bricklayer, then became a fitness trainer and real estate agent, before he finally began to sell funds. Among other things, he revealed that he always had a 500 euro note with him to feel rich.
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
