Werner Mauss

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Werner Mauss , alias Claus Möllner , Dieter Koch or Richard Nelson (born February 11, 1940 in Essen ), is a former German private investigator who worked for various companies and from 1965 also as a "civilian employee" for police authorities and secret services . In connection with various conflicts and affairs, his name became known to the general public.

activities

His work as an undercover agent brought Mauss good contacts with various police authorities (u. A. Bundeskriminalamt ), the Federal Intelligence Service and in politics. In the 1990s his contacts extended to the Federal Chancellery . His direct contact there was the long-standing secret service coordinator of the Kohl government , Minister of State Bernd Schmidbauer . In a letter to the former President of the Federal Intelligence Service, Hansjörg Geiger (1996–1998), Mauss wrote: "All in all, more than 1,600 people were demonstrably arrested through my operations."

Mauss has probably not worked on behalf of the state since 2000, but the passport was officially extended to his cover identity Claus Möllner in 2014 by the Simmern / Hunsrück community administration . Reported is Möllner at the address of the law firm Hansen in Simmern / Hunsrück. His cover identity Nelson was also extended by the administration in Zell (Mosel) .

Professional career

At the end of the 1950s, Werner Mauss was to take over a farm from his family environment and began training as a farmer , which he completed with a diploma in 1960. The takeover of the business did not materialize, so that Mauss retrained to become a detective at his own expense. Due to a lack of funds of his own to finance the courses and various private teachers, he worked as an auxiliary journalist on the night shift for two daily newspapers in the Ruhr area, as a vacuum cleaner representative, as a night worker in the Duisburg port and in a coal mine. In 1961 Werner Mauss founded a detective agency in Essen. At the same time, he made his license and offered his activities with the addition of “own flight throughout Europe”.

After initial successes against organized crime , Mauss began to no longer work exclusively for private clients at the end of the 1960s, and the insurance industry also secured his services. Werner Mauss also investigated (and sometimes at the same time) for various security authorities covertly in the criminal milieu, provided with information by police authorities, paid for by insurance associations.

From 1969 Werner Mauss worked for the first time on behalf of the then newly established investigation team of the Federal Criminal Police Office. With the help of Mauss, the felons Alfred Lecki and Werner Derks, who had broken out of prison several times, were tracked down in Alicante and Marbella and caught by the police.

Legends

Werner Mauss has been linked to a number of spectacular criminal cases. The exact processes and his involvement are only partially clarified, which contributes to the legend. The name Mauss is mentioned in connection with the discovery of the Seveso poison , with the arrest of the RAF terrorist Rolf Pohle in Athens , with the release of the Hezbollah hostages Rudolf Cordes and Alfred Schmidt in Lebanon and with the arrest of the perpetrators and their repatriation of the stolen Cologne cathedral treasure .

The "Institution M", as Mauss was called at the BKA, always came into play when state organs got stuck, did not want to "get their hands dirty" or were unable to carry out an operation for legal or international law reasons. Critics accuse Mauss of having exceeded the boundaries of the rule of law and of having acted as an “ agent provocateur by the state,” ie inciting crimes that he was later credited with clearing up.

In 1984 an investigative committee of the Lower Saxony state parliament tried to clarify whether and to what extent Mauss was provided with legends when, by whom and for what purpose, whether he served exclusively state or private economic interests under aliases, whether he worked as an agent provocateur and violated rights together with civil servants committed or covered up. Mauss was only questioned in 1988 - after several unsuccessful subpoenas - although he relied on restricted permission to give evidence or stated that he could not remember details.

The Düe case and the first photo in the press

In 1983, in the course of the legal proceedings against the jeweler René Düe, the first photo of Werner Mauss reached the press . At the time, Mauss, in collaboration with a special commission, investigated suspected fraud to the detriment of an insurance company against the suspect Düe. He contacted Düe, who claimed to have been robbed, using an alias and took over as a stealer items that Düe had previously reported as stolen. As a result, René Düe was arrested on August 5, 1982 and sentenced on January 4, 1984 by the Hanover Regional Court to seven and a half years in prison. After the revision of the judgment in the appellate instance, the evidence obtained conspiratorially in the new trial was discarded and the district court reprimanded Mauss' undercover operation and acquitted Düe on March 13, 1989 for lack of evidence.

A parliamentary investigation committee of the Lower Saxony state parliament dealt, among other things, with Mauss' methods in the Düe case. This stayed away from the committee despite multiple summons.

Despite the criminal acquittal, the civil chamber of the Hanover regional court convicted Düe for fraudulent misrepresentation and gross negligence. His application for legal aid for a claim for damages against the insurance company in the amount of DM 73 million was rejected. The Federal Court of Justice later confirmed this judgment.

Almost 20 years later (in June 2000), 10.8 kilograms of the jewelery reported as stolen at the time, some of which still had the original label, were seized in René Düe's father's earlier shop. At this point in time, however, a possible criminal prosecution was already barred.

Activities in South America

In the mid-1980s, Mauss was increasingly active in South America , especially in Colombia . Here he was deployed - initially on behalf of Mannesmann AG - to enforce the construction of a pipeline against the resistance of the guerrilla group ELN and to free four kidnapped managers of the company.

Mauss founded an aid organization together with the Catholic Church and received the Sarare Peace Prize in Colombia from the Apostolic Vicariate of Arauca on September 9, 1985. He took up the contacts from this time again in the 1990s when he initiated a peace process supported by the Chancellery Minister Bernd Schmidbauer . This made it a condition that the kidnapped European hostages held in Colombia should be released without paying any ransom . Mauss then negotiated the release of European hostages from the hands of the ELN in several cases in Colombia. The exact circumstances and his role in it remained secret for security reasons.

Werner Mauss and his wife were arrested by the Colombian police in Medellín on November 17, 1996 when they were about to leave the country with a German hostage who had previously been kidnapped by local criminals and negotiated for release by the guerrilla movement ELN. He and his wife were held in custody for nine months on charges of being involved in ransom payments. The preliminary investigation was closed on May 20, 1998 and the Mauss were acquitted on all counts. The court ruled the arrest unlawful.

Mauss successfully took legal action against media reports that claimed that ransom money had been paid. Schmidbauer explained that the contacts between the Mauss and the ELN, which he initiated, were transparent and coordinated with the Federal Government from the perspective of the Federal Government.

After his release from pretrial detention in June 1997, Mauss continued his negotiations in the Colombian jungle , supported by the then President of the Republic of Colombia Ernesto Samper , the National Peace Commission of Colombia, the German Bishops' Conference and the German Federal Government . With the consent of the conflicting parties, Mauss led the then military head of the Colombian ELN, Pablo Beltrán , to Germany in July 1998 for peace negotiations.

Activities after 1999

According to his own statements, Mauss has been working on dismantling the structures he had created in Colombia since 1999. In Malaysia he investigated the terrorist organization Abu Sayyaf and in Nicaragua because of an ETA cell and in Colombia with regard to the FARC and various drug cartels. He worked on various offenses in Thailand , and in Cambodia Werner Mauss was involved in the fight against drugs. In the years 2002–2007 he worked again with German authorities. Werner Mauss worked in Hungary to get the Flick coffin back . As a mediator he worked in China and in the Vatican to bring the two states closer together. Mauss is active in the fight against terrorism in the Middle East and Asia. He has been fighting counterfeit money since 2011.

Party donations

A lawyer Mauss explained that this since 1968 - since the start of his residence in the district of Cochem-Zell with its identity - Richard Nelson regularly to the CDU donated have. His client can no longer understand today whether the payments were made to the district association or to the regional association.

For this purpose, Mauss used, at least in the years 2008 to 2015, an escrow account of the law firm of Franz Otto Hansen from Eisenach and Simmern / Hunsrück , deposited on the money in cash and then transferred to the district CDU Cochem-Zell or the CDU Rhineland- Pfalz was sent.

Patrick Schnieder , Secretary General of the CDU Rhineland-Palatinate, explained that donations from before 1999 could not be traced because no more documents were available. Donations amounting to 25,000 D-Marks were found under Mauss' cover name Richard Nelson from 1999 and 2001 . Donations totaling 31,000 euros from Mauss' lawyer Hansen can be found in the documents from 2002, 2004 and 2005. The sum of the amounts to the district CDU for the years 2008 to 2015 is 63,500 euros. Mauss donated a total of at least 125,000 euros to the CDU Rhineland-Palatinate by 2015. In 2010 it was 9,000 euros and 9,500 euros.

According to Mauss' attorney Gero Himmelsbach, the law firm has been doing business for Werner Mauss for 30 years. He confirmed to Südwestrundfunk that the donations were made on behalf of Mauss. They are openly named and on behalf of the Nolilane company .

consequences

CDU state manager Jan Zimmer stated on September 30, 2016 that the CDU learned about it on September 29, 2016 and that the donations were funds. On September 30, 2016, the CDU transferred the donations to the German Bundestag because they classified the money as an inadmissible donation.

Mauss' lawyer Hansen wrote to the President of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert on October 3, 2016 . For years he has been an authorized representative of Nolilane NV , a stock corporation under Dutch law, and donated to the CDU on their behalf between 2008 and 2015. The Liechtenstein Foundation Werida is a partner in the company . According to information from NDR and SZ, the beneficiary of this foundation is a camouflage identity of Mauss. Mauss is supposed to manage part of his assets in this foundation.

At the request of the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen parliamentary group on October 5, 2016, the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament dealt with the donations in a current hour .

On November 9, 2016, the treasurer of the CDU district association Cochem-Zell, Peter Bleser , declared that he would no longer run for this office as the donations became known.

Panama Papers

According to the Panama Papers published in April 2016, Mauss is said to be associated with letterbox companies in South America. As a cover name is Klaus Möllner and Claus Möllner and Werner Möller called. The names Richard Nelson , Alexander Nelson , Horst Faber , Dr. Lamp , Jacques , Marlowe , Otto John and Herbert Rick called. The names of the letterbox companies are Nolilane , Transacta Valores , Boreal Management , Baird Ressources , Capriccio Management , Bradler International , Corporación de Inversiones Cascabel , Goldborn Overseas , Goodwin Holdings Corp , Nerball Enterprises , Zabo SA and Anysberg International .

Nolilane and Werida

Panama Papers documents show that the company Nolilane NV was founded in Curaçao and deleted from the commercial register of the Netherlands Antilles in 2005 .

According to Mauss' lawyer Hansen, the Liechtenstein Foundation Werida is a partner in the company . According to information from NDR and SZ, the beneficiary of this foundation is a camouflage identity of Mauss. Hansen has been an authorized representative of the company for years .

Trial on suspicion of tax evasion

On September 26, 2016 began the second great economic Trial Chamber of the Landgericht Bochum under chairmanship of Mark van den Hoevel a criminal tax proceedings against Mauss (file number 365 Js 335/12). He was accused of having evaded more than 15 million euros in taxes. Under his alias Claus Möllner, Mauss was the beneficiary of two foundations that had deposits worth 37 million euros in Luxembourg in 2008. The money was not taxed in Germany and, according to the investigators, has meanwhile grown to more than 50 million euros. Evidence of this was found on a CD from the Swiss bank UBS , which tax investigators bought in 2012. Mauss stated that the money does not belong to him. It was first entrusted to him in 1985 via a UBS account in Panama by a secret society ( Autoridades de seguridad del oeste , German: "Western security authorities") to finance Mauss' fight against terrorism and crime. The money was later transferred to UBS in Luxembourg. Mauss couldn't say who is behind the secret society. Allegedly the Vatican, the State of Israel and humanitarian organizations are involved. German authorities had been informed but did not participate financially in the secret fund, which is still active today. Mauss wanted to get Gerhard Boeden to be summoned as a witness because he could confirm his statements. At the end of November, Mauss informed the court that he had determined that Boeden had died since 2010.

On January 9, 2017, the former state minister and secret service coordinator of the federal government, Bernd Schmidbauer , testified as a witness about his knowledge of these processes before the Bochum regional court. According to Schmidbauer's statement, there should be such a secret fund.

On March 3, 2017, Werner Mauss wrote an open letter entitled Courts or the Media: Who is Right? to the media.

In the pleadings , the public prosecutor demanded a prison sentence of six years and three months, the defense an acquittal. On October 5, 2017, the court sentenced Mauss to two years probation for tax evasion in ten cases. The probation period was set to three years, and Mauss also had to pay 200,000 euros for charitable purposes. The court found it proven that Mauss had received 35 million euros in interest from a Luxembourg property. Werner Mauss was of the opinion that the money did not belong to him at all, which is why he mistakenly assumed that he did not have to pay taxes. Mauss passed the money through various foundations until it eventually became his. For example, one cannot consider one's possible heirs with foreign money or have one's property converted into a “ mausoleum ”. Therefore the money should have been taxed. If Mauss had paid tax on it, he could have claimed operating costs . With regard to the amount of the operating costs, the court accepted a list submitted by Mauss, which put it at around 29 million euros. Of the remaining six million euros, this results in a tax burden of around 2 to 2.3 million euros. Since the Federal Court of Justice had ruled in earlier decisions that a suspended sentence should generally no longer be possible for debts evaded more than one million euros, the presiding judge went into detail about the amount of the penalty. Mauss' "impressive lifetime achievement", for which "the Chamber has the highest respect", deserved special recognition. In addition, the fact that Werner Mauss does not have a criminal record, is relatively old, has a family and subsequently paid his tax liability in full, has a mitigating effect. "Mr. Mauss did not kill or cheat anyone, there is no danger from him," says van den Hövel, "therefore the chamber, with stomach ache, won a suspended sentence." The sentence was criticized by the Bonn legal scholar Thomas Grosse-Wilde. The "lifetime achievement" as an extraordinary reason to mitigate punishment would find no support in German law. It is a bonus that the court only used in this individual case. Grosse-Wilde also points out that there is no social consensus on what a great life achievement is; a "lifetime achievement" case law exposes itself to the charge of class justice.

Prosecution and defense laid in 2017 on 6 October revision to the Bundesgerichtshof; on January 10, 2019, he overturned the judgment against Werner Mauss and referred the decision back to the Bochum Regional Court.

The Bochum district court announced on June 17, 2020 that the second criminal case against the ex-secret agent Werner Mauss will be suspended. The reason for the suspension of the procedure are missing documents from Switzerland, Luxembourg and Israel, which are now to be obtained. Follow-up investigations are required that could take one to two years. As long as the process remains officially suspended, then the process has to start all over again.

Private

Werner Mauss says he is married to Maria Alida Laetitia Mauss, née Veltri, who was born in Sardinia , has three children and lives in Altstrimmig .

literature

  • At the beginning of 2004 the Ullstein Verlag announced a book M - Ein Agentenleben , ISBN 3-550-07587-1 , for April 2004 . Mauss was shown on the book shown in the announcement, and the journalist and secret service expert Wilhelm Dietl ( Die BKA-Story et al.) Was named as co-author next to Mauss . However, the book never appeared, in November the Ullstein-Verlag took the book out of the program without giving a reason.
  • Stefan Aust : Mauss, a German agent . Goldmann, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-455-08641-1 .
  • Jacques Berndorf : Requiem for an executioner . KBV-Verlags- und Mediengesellschaft, Hillesheim 1990, ISBN 3-937001-72-7 (in this work the journalist Michael Preute processes knowledge from his professional activity under his fictional pseudonym. The - only partially fictional - story has a strong relation to Werner Mauss ).
  • Ignacio Gomez, Peter Schumacher: The agent and his minister: Mauss and Schmidbauer on a secret mission (= Antifa edition ), Elefanten-Press, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-88520-631-5 (biography).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Werner Mauss alias Claus Möllner alias Dieter Koch alias Richard Nelson. Author, September 24, 2016, accessed September 30, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Kobold Undercover . In: Der Spiegel . No. 50 , 1996 ( online ).
  3. ↑ a b RP authorities issued Mauss with false passports. Südwestrundfunk , November 4, 2016, accessed November 9, 2016 .
  4. ↑ a b Gianna Niewel, Frederik Obermaier , Bastian Obermayer : The Phantom. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 1, 2016, accessed on October 28, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Jan Lukas Strozyk : New camouflage ID has appeared. Bayerischer Rundfunk , October 28, 2016, archived from the original on November 10, 2016 .;
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Jan Lukas Strozyk : Dubious CDU donations, dubious companies. tagesschau.de , October 27, 2016, accessed on October 28, 2016 .
  7. ^ A b c Karl-Ludwig Günsch, Hans-Werner Loose: The Mauss system. In: Die Welt , July 31, 1998.
  8. ↑ werner-mauss.de From the documentary by Stephan Lamby on behalf of the MDR: The Top Agent "The secret life of Werner Mauss", broadcast by ARD on February 17, 1999, NDR on September 4, 2000 and by Phoenix on September 12, 1999. February 2002
  9. ↑ Wochenspiegel , June 10, 1998; on werner-mauss.de
  10. ↑ detektiv-report.de
  11. ↑ The detective and the bastards . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1985 ( online ).
  12. ↑ On the nose . In: Der Spiegel . No. 28 , 1985 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Juwelenraub Düe Excerpt from HÖRFUNKINTERVIEW by Joachim Hagen, NDR from July 18, 2006 with Werner Mauss
  14. ↑ a b In Monsieur's network . In: Der Spiegel . No. 26 , 2000 ( online ).
  15. ↑ The Bought Secret Service . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1985 ( online ).
  16. ↑ judgments by werner-mauss.de
  17. ^ Letter from Ernesto Samper, the incumbent President from this time, Bogotá, Colombia, November 29, 2005 on werner-mauss.de
  18. ↑ Reply of the Federal Government to a "Small Inquiry" on the role of the Federal Government in connection with Mauss' actions in Colombia
  19. ↑ werner-mauss.de
  20. ↑ Regional court Bochum: judgment of October 5, 2017, file number: II-2 KLs 365 Js 335 / 12-8 / 16 (accessed on February 4, 2019).
  21. ^ A b Matthias Bartsch: 80,000 euros, donor "not known". Der Spiegel , September 30, 2016, accessed October 3, 2016 .
  22. ↑ a b c d e f g Money comes from ex-agent Mauss. Südwestrundfunk , October 1, 2016, accessed October 3, 2016 .
  23. ↑ Hendrik Hering : Printed matter 17/1170. (PDF) State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate , October 4, 2016, accessed on October 28, 2016 .
  24. ↑ 13th plenary session on October 5, 2016 from 2 p.m. State Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate , October 4, 2016, accessed on October 28, 2016 . from minute 1:22:00
  25. ↑ Peter Bleser retires as CDU treasurer. Südwestrundfunk , November 9, 2016, accessed November 9, 2016 .
  26. ↑ Ralf Wiegand: Mauss thinks he is “in a trap”. Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 20, 2017, accessed on March 21, 2017 .
  27. ↑ a b Jan Lukas Strozyk: The truths of Werner Mauss. Tagesschau , September 23, 2016, accessed on September 26, 2016 .
  28. ↑ Reiner Burger : Greatest secret agent of all time. Die Zeit , December 19, 2016, accessed on December 19, 2016 .
  29. ↑ René Heilig: '008' and the Mauss-millions. In: Neues Deutschland from January 11, 2017, p. 6.
  30. ↑ Ex-Chancellery chief confirms existence of secret funds. Die Zeit , January 9, 2017, accessed on February 15, 2017 .
  31. ↑ An open letter to the press from Werner Mauss
  32. ↑ a b c d BGH should examine the suspended sentence. Handelsblatt , October 6, 2017, accessed on October 9, 2017 .
  33. ^ Two years probation for ex-agent Mauss. Die Zeit , October 5, 2017, accessed on October 9, 2017 .
  34. ^ Ralf Wiegand: A kneeling before the great Werner Mauss. Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2017, accessed on October 9, 2017 .
  35. ↑ Regional court Bochum: judgment of October 5, 2017, file number: II-2 KLs 365 Js 335 / 12-8 / 16 (accessed on February 4, 2019).
  36. ↑ a b Lara-Marie Müller: Werner Mauss sentenced to suspended sentence. Handelsblatt , October 5, 2017, accessed on October 9, 2017 .
  37. ↑ Jochen Zenthöfer: Katz and Mauss, d'Lëtzebuerger Land , October 20, 2017 (accessed November 3, 2017).
  38. ↑ BGH U. v. January 10, 2019, Az. 1 StR 347/18 .
  39. ↑ Second criminal case against ex-secret agent Mauss failed
  40. ↑ Dirk Laabs : The Phantom. Germany's most secret agent. Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 24, 2016, accessed on September 30, 2016 .
personal data
SURNAME Mauss, Werner
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German private detective and agent
DATE OF BIRTH February 11, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH eat