Ex-boss of the German Property Group: six years in prison for fraud!

Ex-boss of the German Property Group: six years in prison for fraud!

Hildesheim, Deutschland - this day, June 17, 2025, it is known that Charles Smethurst, the former managing director of German Property Group , due to difficult fraud on a prisoner of six years and eleven months was convicted. The Hildesheim district court saw it as proven that Smethurst has cheated investors by a total of 26 million euros in several cases. Originally, 56 million euros were even mentioned as total damage in the indictment, but the court spoke him free in one point.

In the period between June 2018 and July 2019, Smethurst investors from France and other investors deceived to record loans, even though his company was already insolvent. However, the court could not convince his claim that he did not act out of greed. The judge expressed doubts about Smethurt's motifs, which underpinned the severity of the punishment. The German Property Group, which originally wanted to acquire, renovate and sell profitably, would have decayed its objects while she had to struggle with liquidity bottlenecks.

The unexplained cash flows

An essential problem remains the unclear remaining of around 800 million euros. Insolvency administrator Justus von Buchwaldt found that the German Property Group payments of EUR 1.3 billion were recorded. So far, only around 360 million euros have been sensibly able to understand, while for the rest - as "unimaginable or suspicious" classified - there is no trace. Almost 8,000 investors have already registered with the insolvency administrator, while a total of up to 25,000 creditors have been assumed. The business model has not been sustainable since 2018, and the company was thrown into the eyes of an ever larger circle of investors.

It is particularly alarming that Smethurst has raised money from international investors since 2008, promised returns of up to 15 percent annually and uses that ultimately could not be met in most cases. The allegations raised also concern investors from Singapore, which have been named in fallen charges, which underlines the international dimensions of this scandal.

background of the fraud

The mesh that Smethurst was on is not the only one that has been uncovered in the real estate industry in recent years. Other fraud gangs have also established themselves in the German and Swiss real estate landscape in a similar way. One example is the BG Business Group , which is said to have accumulated more than 100 million euros of over a thousand buyers. This group often attracted weak citizens with supposedly lucrative offers, but the promised construction projects were never realized and also ended in bankruptcy.

The seriousness of the situation is also underlined by the fact that the German authorities have not created any annual financial statements for most companies in the German Property Group since 2013. The processing of this fraud scandals is not only important as a legal investigation, but has long since affected trust in the entire real estate market and its actors.

It remains to be seen whether the punishment is sufficient for Smethurst to bring justice to the injured party. So far, no further investigations against possible accomplices have been initiated, which raises questions: Who will be held accountable and how can future fraud cases be met in this industry? Time and continuous investigation will show whether the bright spots that we see in the shadow of this scandal can actually be done.