Dieter Behring

Dieter Behring (born April 27, 1955 in Solothurn ; † March 5, 2019 ; entitled to live in Trimbach ) was a Swiss financier and fraudster . He boasted that he had cracked the “genetic code” of stock market trading and caused one of the biggest Swiss financial scandals. His alleged “ hedge funds ”, which were never approved for sale in Switzerland, received a total of 1.2 billion Swiss francs in customer funds . After a long process, Behring was sentenced on September 30, 2016 by the Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona to a prison sentence of five and a half years for commercial fraud. His complaints against the ruling were rejected by the Federal Supreme Court in 2018 , and the ruling is final. The financial damage he caused was estimated at 800 million francs.

Career

Petersgasse 34 in Basel (“Schönkindhof”), headquarters of Behring's company, which is also his place of residence

The first try

As an insurance agent, he systematically collected savings between 1986 and 1990 and offered investors high interest in return. He promised the money in the insurance company UAP to apply, but kept the money to make it pay out to existing customers and interest ( pyramid scheme ). In 1990 he went bankrupt with this illegal practice .

It was actually illegal because he would have had to submit to the supervision of the Swiss Federal Banking Commission for accepting customer money and paying interest and a banking license .

The Redsafe Bank

The economic collapse of the financial construct with companies in Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the Bahamas began in July 2004, when a year and a half after Behring's takeover of Redsafe Bank, there was still no banking license from the Swiss Federal Banking Commission. The products of Redsafe Bank, which also never sold products from Behring, could therefore never be offered.

He described corresponding newspaper reports in the Basler Zeitung , the Tages-Anzeiger and the SonntagsZeitung as a mud battle against himself and brought criminal charges against several journalists in connection with reporting on his person. To make the issue more objective, he announced that he would sell Redsafe Bank to an investor, but this did not succeed. In August it became known that two thirds of the funds, around one billion francs, which should actually have been contained in the alleged hedge funds, were no longer available. Neither the bank nor Behring explained whether this decline was due to customer withdrawals or losses. As a result, the first suspicions arose that the supposedly fantastic returns were only based on a pyramid scheme and were never actually generated.

Various sales plans of the bank failed:

• Sold to a £ 1 London letterbox company, backed by an inactive Canadian auto dealership.
• Sale to the large German landowner Karl August von Thurn und Taxis with partners.

On September 19, 2004 the SFBC supervisory authority ordered the liquidation of Redsafe Bank, which ceased operations on September 21 and withdrew its application for a license as a bank and securities dealer .

On October 19, 2004, Behring was arrested on suspicion of fraud amounting to several hundred million Swiss francs. A specially set up hotline of the Federal Criminal Police received around 35 calls on the first day it was set up.

On November 12, 2004, Behring withdrew his criminal charges against the journalists.

Siding

Together with Behring, the Basel Councilor and Councilor of States Anita Fetz and the Solothurn government councilor Roberto Zanetti served on the Pro Facile Board of Trustees. Money was invested in a hedge fund, but it was not lost: the foundation was able to confirm the repayment of the money in August 2004. In the subsequent elections, both had to fear their re-election - among other things, because Behring had supported both financially during past election campaigns. While Fetz was confirmed as a member of the Council of States, Zanetti was unable to get re-elected. However, he was elected as a Council of States in 2010.

State of the investigation

This article or section needs to be revised: Investigation status not up to date. Since the process has now started, the amount of damage should be determined. The termination of several of the proceedings against the eleven other participants and a reduction in the number of charges due to so-called focusing are also missing.
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The federal prosecutor's office is investigating him for investment fraud, embezzlement and money laundering . Behring was in custody until April 25, 2005. He was bailed out against a bail of one million francs from a XXX Ltd. was released. Behring had to leave his passport and report to the police regularly. In summer 2006 he moved to Fricktal . The exact amount of damage is still unclear.

He and another suspect had been temporarily detained again since March 6, 2007, but were released after two weeks.

According to the guidance published by the Federal Prosecutor on February 21, 2008 for the attention of the injured party and the public about the preliminary investigation against Behring and co-accused, there is a suspicion that the illegally accepted public funds were never actually invested, but collected, postponed and finally for use in an allocation procedure were used illegally and to maintain the allegedly fraudulent system. This substantiates the suspicion that this was an illegal pyramid scheme. The preliminary investigation was directed in February 2008 against a total of twelve people. By this time, defrauded investors had claimed damage of at least CHF 220 million.

New website launched at the end of April 2008

Various Swiss media reported at the end of April 2008, based on an article published in the Basler Zeitung , on a new website operated by Behring and launched on April 27, 2008 for the first time. In this Behring touted a new share strategy and recommended himself for the administration of money that he would receive from private individuals, companies and fund companies from one million Swiss francs. The Federal Banking Commission put the relevant website under surveillance. In addition, Behring offered a volume of poetry for 980 francs and self-portrait pictures for up to 8050 francs on its website.

Indictment, Trial and Judgment

Around 11 years after the opening of criminal proceedings, the Federal Prosecutor's Office brought charges against Behring in October 2015. The main hearing before the Federal Criminal Court began on May 30, 2016. On September 30, 2016, Behring was sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment for commercial fraud. His appeals against the judgment were rejected by the federal court in 2018 . The judgment is final.

In January 2019, it was announced that Behring was hospitalized seriously ill. An application for postponement of custody for January 28, 2019 has been submitted. He died without going to prison.

Private

Behring was married and lived in Gipf-Oberfrick in Aargau .

literature

• Leo Müller : crime scene Zurich. Insights into the shadowy world of international financial crime. Updated paperback edition. Ullstein, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-548-36949-5 .
• Peter Zihlmann : The stock market guru. The rise and fall of Dieter Behring. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-280-05144-4 .

Web links

• Dieter Behring's website
• behring.ch
• SFBC Annual Report 2004 pages 42–43, Liquidation of Redsafe Bank - No guarantee by Dieter Behring (PDF file; 2.0 MB)
• Dieter Behring - The birth of a stock market magician
• Franziska Laur: "The first acts are now beginning to become statute-barred." Interview with Federal Prosecutor Michael Lauber , Basler Zeitung, March 12, 2013
• Dölf Duttweiler: Federal Prosecutor: turning point in the Behring case. In: Rundschau , SRF 1 of March 26, 2014
• Franziska Laur: The endless million dollar process. In: Basler Zeitung of August 7, 2014

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mario Stäuble: Financier Dieter Behring is dead , Tages-Anzeiger online, March 7, 2019, accessed on March 7, 2019.
2. ↑ behring.ch , obituary notice on Dieter Behring's website, accessed on August 5, 2019.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Dieter Behring has to go to prison for more than five years. In: Tages-Anzeiger from September 30, 2016.
4. ↑ ^{a b} Kathrin Alder: Imprisonment confirmed: The Basel financier Dieter Behring loses before the federal court. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from 23 August 2018.
5. ↑ Solothurner Zeitung , August 19, 2004
6. ↑ Yumpu.com: Preliminary proceedings against Dieter Behring and co-accused ... In: yumpu.com . ( yumpu.com [accessed June 12, 2018]).
7. ↑ Activity report 2014 of the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office. (PDF) SS 15 , accessed on June 12, 2018 . 
8. ↑ 20 minutes, April 29, 2008
9. ↑ Epoch Times, April 29, 2008 ( Memento of May 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ Blick, April 30, 2008
11. ↑ 2000 investors cheated by CHF 800 million: charges against Dieter Behring . NZZ, October 10, 2015
12. ↑ Start of the trial against millionaire fraudster Dieter Behring: Private defender puts forward a daring hypothesis . Aargauer Zeitung, May 30, 2016
13. ^ Judgment (PDF).
14. ↑ Henry Habegger: At the end of the month he should go to jail: Behring, a fraudster of millions, is now in Bern's Inselspital. In: CH Media . January 16, 2019, accessed March 7, 2019.
15. ^ Franziska Laur: The desperation of the Behring victims. In: Basler Zeitung of March 12, 2013