Gold is still considered by many to be a crisis-proof investment. The gold trader PIM from Heusenstamm promises investors such grandiose returns that some invest their entire retirement savings. After a few years, the business construct collapses, now the verdict is spoken against the former PIM managing director.
Actually there should have been three tons of gold in safes. A fraction of this amount was found after the gold dealer PIM from southern Hesse went bankrupt. After the promise of 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. In a mammoth case, the Darmstadt Regional Court has been negotiating for two years against the former managing director on suspicion of serious fraud and money laundering. On Tuesday, the chamber will speak its verdict with the presiding judge Felix Diefenbacher.
In the process, which was dragging on not least because of the pandemic, there was talk of the use of private detectives, gold deals at motorway service stations, greedy sales employees and deficits in organization and accounting over almost 90 days of negotiations. According to defense attorney Stefanie Schott, almost 200 witnesses were heard. There were also 28 so-called self-readings of documents to simplify the procedure – around 7,000 pages. This means that the files do not have to be read out in the process, but can be viewed outside.
The accusation of the public prosecutor’s office in their 226-page indictment: PIM Gold from Heusenstamm is said to have concluded supply contracts with customers from 2016 to 2019, including promises of bonuses for gold, but not fulfilled them. Interest is said to have been paid out with the money of newly recruited customers according to a kind of pyramid scheme. The 51-year-old ex-managing director has been in custody for more than three years. The process started in 2017 with a former employee who fell out with the accused and filed a complaint. In September 2019, the arrest warrant against the now 51-year-old was executed and the company went bankrupt. In its pleading, the defense itself described the complainant as a “criminal”.
For public prosecutor Wilk, the two-year hearing of evidence revealed: “The establishment of the business model was fraudulently planned 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 allegation of money laundering as proven. More than three million euros in criminal profits from a business in Frankfurt are said to have been transferred to Turkey via the gold dealer’s accounts. Among other things, the former boss would benefit from the conditions of pre-trial detention, the long process and a partial confession. The public prosecutor is asking for a sentence of seven and a half years.
The defense evaluates the information provided by their client as a comprehensive confession. The deal was not planned from the start as a pyramid 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 made and people were harmed.”
He took the blame and admitted the allegations, says attorney Schott. Money laundering was at most careless. In addition to the confession, the long process and her client’s willingness to cooperate, Schott also sees the more than three years of pre-trial detention, partly under more stringent conditions in the pandemic, as factors for her client. He sat in his eight-square-meter cell for 23 hours a day. “He had no contact with other people.” The defense is asking for a maximum sentence of five years and nine months and has asked for the arrest warrant to be overturned.
Insolvency administrator Renald Metoja was also unable to answer where gold or money remained in the proceedings. Instead of the three tons of precious metal mentioned, 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. The accused apologized in his closing words, almost in tears: “I’m really sorry.”
