Hildesheim's real estate manager convicted: 26 million euros!

Hildesheim's real estate manager convicted: 26 million euros!

A scandal that makes the financial world listen: The former managing director of the German Property Group, Charles Smethurst, was convicted before the district court in Hildesheim after cheating investors by a whopping 26 million euros. The judgment, which was announced last Tuesday, speaks of a particularly serious fraud in four cases. Smethurst, 65 years old, has to go behind grids for six years and eleven months.

What happened? Smethurst was guilty of not informing his investors about the insolvency of the German Property Group, which specialized in the purchase and renovation of listed properties. Despite the recognizable bankruptcy of the company, he continued the loan recording and thus brought his donors into considerable wealth. He was originally confronted with 56 deeds that would be total damage of around 56 million euros. However, as part of an understanding between the public prosecutor and the defense, this complex was reduced to five charges, but only four were treated.

confession and consequences

The agreement came about after Smethurst made a comprehensive confession in which he entered his mistakes and explained that he wanted to save his structured life. The acts from the period between June 2018 and July 2019 were mainly negotiated. The injured investors mainly came from France, while the indictment points against investors from Singapore were dropped. The insolvency administrator reports of 1.3 billion euros in incoming payments, but the whereabouts of around 800 million euros are still unclear.

The fact that 8,000 investors have now registered with the insolvency administrator is particularly sensational. Estimates go from up to 25,000 creditors worldwide. Originally, the German Property Group had promised returns of up to 15 percent, while real estate that they wanted to buy and renovate were mostly expired. The liquidity bottlenecks in the company took over, and invoices could no longer be paid for what the bankruptcy maturity illustrated at the latest from mid -2018.

a judgment with far -reaching consequences

The public prosecutor had requested a prison sentence of seven years and three months, while the defense proposed for six years and nine months. Ultimately, the sentence imposed is in the midfield of the agreed framework. The court made it clear that the perpetrator not only misused his own financial interests, but also the trust of investors. With this judgment there is a clear sign that is not tolerated in the financial world.

How is it going now? The case clearly shows that investors should be more careful, and trust in the financial world has been once more shaken. The investigation and the processing of the fraud are far from over, and the questions about the fate of the missing 800 million euros remain open. The confidence in the German Property Group is finally playful.

For precise information on the incidents and the judgment, the reporting of and NDR referred.