A suspected dead German billionaire was found alive
On April 7, 2018, Karl-Erivan-Haub had gone for a hike in the Alps when he disappeared without a trace.
Karl, the billionaire CEO of German retail conglomerate Tengelmann Group, was last seen in security footage heading out alone on a ski lift. Authorities mounted an extensive search for the missing billionaire for over six days using five helicopters, but no remains were ever recovered. Finally, in 2021, a German court ruling declared him dead.
However, according to a report by the German broadcasting agency RTL, Haub is alive and now resides in Moscow with his mistress Veronika Ermilova. The agency claimed that investigative journalists uncovered Haub’s phone logs, in which Haub had made 23 calls to Ermilova over the three days before his disappearance.
RTL’s investigative reporter, Liv von Boetticher, stated photos were also recovered that allegedly show Haub in Moscow in 2021, a few months after the German court declared his death. Karl’s business enterprise, Tengelmann Group, was taken over by his brother Christian Haub shortly after his disappearance.
RTL has filed criminal conspiracy charges against Christian, alleging he’s aware of the whereabouts of the missing billionaire but lied under oath to become the new CEO of the Tengelmann Group. The report also alleged that Christian had hired a private investigation firm to evaluate the possibility of Karl’s fake death.
Following the allegations by RTL, the State Prosecutor’s Office in Cologne launched an investigation into Christian’s official statements made during his takeover as Tengelmann Group’s CEO regarding his missing brother’s whereabouts. Christian Haub’s legal representative, Mark Binz, has denied the allegations and also accused RTL of promoting false information.
German billionaire’s alleged mistress denied rumours
Veronika Ermilova, 44, used to run an event management agency in St. Petersburg around 2018, when Karl went missing. The agency organised hiking, skiing, and mountain climbing for vacationing adventure enthusiasts.
RTL’s report highlighted the unusual frequency and duration of the calls made by Karl to Veronika, some of which lasted for over an hour. Citing the irregularities, RTL’s report speculated that the German-American billionaire was planning to elope with Veronika by faking his death to escape legal and societal obligations.
Ermilova has, however, denied the claims made by RTL and said to the Daily Mail, “I only had a working relationship with him. I don’t live with a German billionaire in Moscow; this is fake. There is no billionaire in my circle; I am married, and I have a child. The company owned by this person was one of our clients. We learned in 2018 that he disappeared in the mountains, and someone in Germany is trying to say that he was found in Moscow. This has not been confirmed at all. He was officially declared dead in Germany.”.
The RTL report has also suggested that Ermilova has ties to the Russian secret service, the FSB.
German billionaire dead or alive: Official verdict?
RTL’s investigative journalist Liv von Boetticher has said the photos recovered during the investigation show Karl-Ervin Haub alive in Moscow.
The photos were captured from Moscow’s city surveillance footage and were allegedly recovered by two private investigators (PI) working for Christian Haub. The PIs were employed by an Israeli-American private investigation agency that searched through Moscow’s biometric surveillance system for images matching Karl-Ervin’s appearance.
Despite the speculations and alleged report by RTL, the senior public prosecutor of Cologne, Ulrich Bremer, has stated that no conclusive evidence has been presented yet that would indicate Karl-Ervin Haub is alive. Until a time when such evidence is presented, the official declaration of the German billionaire’s death will remain standing.
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