A small piece of paper with a large sum: 1’500’000.00 on the Check, which was issued in 2006 in favor of the Austrian politician, Elisabeth Kaufmann-bruckberger. 1.5 million euros, the payment of which has been associated with the procurement of fighter jets of the type Eurofighter in connection.
A copy of the Checks, it was shown in a parliamentary investigation Committee dealing with the allegations of corruption surrounding the purchase of expensive Jets through the blue-black coalition Wolfgang Schüssel and Jörg Haider almost two decades ago. From the Eurofighter consortium EADS, at the time, a network of letter-box companies to be € 180 million to political decision-makers flowed. Up to today, a task force to determine the Eurofighter and the corruption public Prosecutor’s office.
but Because the investigation does not come from the spot, sent now a Whistleblower is a representation of the facts to the Austrian newspaper “Falter” and “Dossier”, as well as to the Prosecutor’s office. In it, he linked the million check not only with the party of the 2008 deceased Jörg Haider, but also with a Swiss Trustee and its company in the Canton of Nidwalden.
Discrete handling of sensitive financial transactions
The payment, the Insider, for which Mr Haider founded a party called Alliance for Austria’s future (BZÖ) and a Swiss letter-box company owned by the Kaufmann-bruckberger handled been had been. This was, in turn, the trust company M. in Hergiswil managed (the company name is known to the editors). The Trustee, as the Whistleblower writes, enjoy an excellent reputation for the discreet handling of sensitive financial transactions. His company will be compared by insiders to the Panama Papers well-known law firm Mossack Fonseca.
About the company M. have been additional payments in connection with the Eurofighter purchase is processed. Documents will still be available. By the investigators of the task force’s Eurofighter, the notes would be taken “very seriously”, writes the “Butterfly”.
the questions of the Sunday newspaper, the owner of the Nidwaldner confirmed escrow company that it had to do with Elisabeth Kaufmann-bruckberger “13 years ago, to”. A connection with the largest bribe affair in Austria, he excludes. Neither he nor his company had ever been in the defense industry or in the policy directly or indirectly engaged. Coincidentally, the Trustee had, at that time, a company with a Swiss Partner, who later became a Lobbyist in the armor business. And also says he have to do with the matter.
Kaufmann-Bruckberger is currently the focus of a corruption process in Carinthia. She admitted to have in 2007, the then Carinthian Governor Jörg Haider 700 000 Euro delivered. It is a Kickback was Kärnten-payment for the purchase of a lake bottom piece through the country. The former politician referred to Check with over 1.5 million as a forgery. To their alleged Swiss company, they expressed themselves.
Swiss because of Using to bribe
Swiss fiduciaries and Swiss fiduciary accused companies were last week, also at the centre of court proceedings in Vienna. Again, it’s about the legacy of the coalition government, Schüssel-Haider from 2000 to 2006. The former FPÖ Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, the former foster son of Jörg Haider and later by Wolfgang Schüssel, is said to have collected bribe for the privatization of apartments in Federal ownership.
The money flowed through a Zurich-based fiduciary company, went to Austria and from there to the Liechtenstein account of a shell company in Belize, which in turn was managed by a Swiss Trustee. This, too, is now accused in Vienna. Last week, Grasser said in front of the judge, once again, to be innocent, and explained the many contradictions in his statements with “sloppiness” of the participating firms in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
The case against Grasser and Mitbeschuldigte has been running for ten years. For years, the Viennese investigators had to wait for important files from Switzerland. The Swiss legal aid for the Austrians, both in the case of the Federal housing as well as the Eurofighter is essential: “For the investigator to perform all the tracks in the Switzerland and Liechtenstein,” says the former member of Parliament, Peter Pilz, who headed a Committee of Inquiry for the purchase of the fighter jets. Who wants to hide bribe money, don’t trust Swiss banks more than Austrian, so mushroom: “a certain sum, the Swiss are secretive it’s unbelievable.”
The Swiss anti-corruption expert Mark Pieth is not surprised also about the love of the Austrians, the Swiss fiduciary companies. He had to deal with similar cases, and sees “in the supervision of Trustees a weak point in the Swiss money-laundering-defence system”. The competent self-regulatory bodies “to go with your same too with care”, criticized Pieth.
A sports bag full of cash bundles
in the current investigations around Heinz-Christian Straches Ibiza affair, a Swiss trust company on dips. This Time, however, on the part of the alleged Bribers. The special Commission, Ibiza received photos of a sports bag full of cash in Bundles. She was apparently photographed in 2013, in the car of the former FPÖ boss Strache.
The money is to come by Ukrainian oligarchs, who bought in Austria, real estate, and its Austrian Partner, apparently in a political function, wanted to see. For this, the suspicion of the Austrian investigators, should you have tens of millions of euros to decision-makers of the FPÖ paid.
in fact, the Austrian Partner got a seat in the national Council, for which three other right-wing candidates on their mandates had to do without. He was also the Chairman of the parliamentary friendship group Austria-Ukraine. Behind the Ukrainian group of investors, the Oligarch Igor Kolomojski to who lived at that time in Geneva. The Ukrainians have purchased real estate companies are, in turn, to 100 percent of a investment company in Pfäffikon SZ. A representative says the company had nothing to do with Kolomojski to, payments to the FPÖ or övp had made. The owner does not want he betrayed but.
proceedings in this case has already been set: The Wiener-corruption Prosecutor’s office noted that the purchase of a Deputy’s mandate in Austria is punishable by law. The mysterious bag of cash could bring Strache but now, in the Declaration of a state of emergency.
This Text is from the current issue. Now all of the articles in the E-Paper of the Sunday newspaper, read: App for iOS App for Android – Web-App
Created: 08.12.2019, 09:47 PM
