Zurich judiciary investigates million-dollar fraudster for seven years
Published: Tuesday, Nov 28th 2023, 17:50
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On Tuesday, the public prosecutor's office explained to the Zurich District Court how the investigation into the 52-year-old million-dollar fraudster from the construction industry had turned out. As is often the case with white-collar crime, everything turned out to be much more complicated than expected, they said.
The main accused turned out to be the "tip of the iceberg", said the public prosecutor in her summation. Behind this, a whole construct had come to light.
The offenses were committed in several cantons. The suspects themselves come from the cantons of Aargau, Basel-Stadt and Basel-Land. "These investigations have become a tour de Suisse."
The result was four linear meters of investigation files, which were piled up in boxes at the back of the courtroom. The public prosecutor attested to the accused's "considerable criminal energy". He had forged invoices and signatures 26 times purely for profit.
"At some point I couldn't stop anymore"
The 52-year-old main defendant had already confessed at the start of the trial on Tuesday morning. He said he was sorry. "But at some point I was so deep into it that I couldn't stop." In total, he swindled almost three million francs from construction projects. The canton of Zurich was damaged to the tune of 1.2 million.
He used the same trick to cheat a large Swiss construction company out of roughly the same amount. It was just under half a million for a furniture store that was building a new location.
As project manager, the accused had approved fictitious invoices so that the client paid them. He forged the signature of his superior because he should not have approved the invoices on his own. However, the invoiced work never actually took place, such as landscaping, waterproofing or fire protection.
The project manager and the entrepreneurs then allegedly divided the money between themselves. However, the alleged accomplices deny this. They had not enriched themselves. The prosecution is demanding conditional prison sentences of between 12 and 18 months for them.
©Keystone/SDA
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