Karl-Heinz Matthias

Karl-Heinz Matthias (born April 10, 1945 ) is a German civil servant and former President of the Customs Criminal Police Office .

Career

Karl-Heinz Matthias took over in 1992 with the name "ladder" the existing since 1952 Customs Criminal Institute in Cologne and, after its conversion to the Federal Drug Administration appointed the first President of the Zollkriminalamt and renamed Zollkriminalamt. Matthias is a holder of various orders from foreign customs administrations.

criticism

Critics described Matthias' leadership style as authoritarian. In their opinion, this led to a lack of motivation of the ZKA employees and was the cause of alleged wrong decisions by his subordinate superiors . This fact is also held responsible for various scandals around the customs criminal investigation office. On the other hand, he was officially credited with his work in establishing the authority.

His traditional notions of the professional civil service, corresponding to the loyalty to the Federal Ministry of Finance, also brought him criticism, because the customs investigation service thereby did not play the role within the Federal Ministry of Finance that it itself has as part of the German security architecture. The fact that Matthias had a very difficult task to fulfill because the necessary paradigm shift in the Federal Ministry of Finance away from the "annex" of the customs administration to the police-oriented customs enforcement has so far failed due to conservative ideas is not denied.

Reuter affair

In connection with the so-called Reuter affair - one of the biggest corruption scandals of the Federal Customs Administration - presented the Regional Court of Cologne noted that the lack of supervision of the president of the ZKA later legally convicted offenders have significantly favored.

The contradiction between the aforementioned “authoritarian style of management” and the “inadequate supervision” attested by the Cologne District Court is explained by the fact that the authority headed by Matthias employs well over 600 people. In the questioning before the regional court, Matthias stated that comprehensive supervision was not possible in such a large authority. The chairman noted, however, that with such a large expenditure of 20 million DM this argument could not apply.

In the aftermath of the “Reuter affair”, Matthias improved the internal security measures that are supposed to prevent such incidents from happening again.

Others

Karl-Heinz Matthias has been a member of an expert group since March 2010 that was supposed to evaluate federal security authorities. The report of this group should be submitted to the federal government by autumn 2010.

He is married and has a daughter.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ PA_FOC: Zollkriminalamt: special leave for 007. In: Focus Online . September 16, 2002, accessed October 14, 2018 .