Karl-Erivan Haub is a German-American retail tycoon, former managing director and partial owner of the Tengelmann Group, whose net worth is estimated at US$6.4 billion (about 46.3 billion RMB).
Just six years ago, the then 58-year-old Haub was in an accident and disappeared while training in ski mountaineering on the Matterhorn in Switzerland. It is reported that the authorities launched a six-day search for him, dispatched a mountain rescue team and five helicopters to rescue him, but not only did not find Haub, but in the end even his body was not found, and this was only one month after his father's death.
In 2021, the German court officially declared Haub dead, and since then there has been no such person in the world.
But according to news on April 17, local time, there is new evidence that Haub may still be alive, but he has moved to Moscow, the capital of Russia, to live with a young woman.
According to reports, the Cologne State Prosecutor's Office has opened an investigation into allegations of false information provided by Haub's brother Christian (the man in the middle), and this investigation follows a criminal complaint filed by the journalist of RTL, the broadcaster investigating Haub's disappearance.
In 2021, Haub's younger brother, Christian, said after taking an oath in court that there was no indication that his brother was still alive.
Christian took over the "Tinglemann Group" after his brother's disappearance and claimed to have commissioned the security services to investigate "rumors" that his brother was still alive.
According to Liv von Boetticher, a female journalist for RTL, she knew that Haub had been photographed in Moscow in 2021, the same year that he was pronounced dead. "As far as I know, the photos were obtained by a representative of an Israeli-American company, Christian Haub, and two internal investigators working for him, which searched for images of Karl-Erivan Haub in the biometric surveillance system in Moscow," she explained.
It is also reported that there are many people who know about the existence of the photo, and that the appearance of the person who is claimed to have died overlapped with the person in the photograph about 90%.
"There is strong evidence that [Carl-Erivan Haub] may have deliberately faked the disappearance, and that at least some of his family knew about it, and that they had also concealed the secret from the District Court of Cologne against their conscience," Boticher insisted. ”
As for why Haub (pictured with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2009) pretended to have died, Boticher said: "He allegedly had a lover with whom he was in constant telephone contact before his disappearance. ”
Sources say that just three days before Haub's disappearance, he had called the alleged lover 13 times. "In addition to American and German citizenship, the billionaire is rumored to have a Russian passport," says The Times. There are also claims that between 2010 and 2015, millions of euros from the "Tingelman Group" flowed into Russia.
This is the Russian woman suspected of living with Haub, her name is Veronika Ermilova, who is said to be 20 years younger than Haub and is described as "a slim, athletic woman with shoulder-length brown hair, dark eyes, and a big smile."
Investigators hinted that Ermirova "may work for the Federal Security Service of Russia (abbreviation: FSB)," but also stressed that this "cannot be confirmed." But the investigation report also states, "However, it can be proven that she was always in the same place at the same time and Carl-Eriskan Haub." ”
Haub has also been found to have ties to at least two wealthy Russians, including banker Andrey Suzdaltsev and Sergey Grishin, who sold the Montecito mansion to Harry and Meghan (who has mysteriously died).
It's worth noting that at the time of Haub's disappearance, the "Tingleman Group" was in very bad shape, "I'm sure it wasn't a skiing accident, it was a well-planned prison escape," said the female journalist, Botticher, though she wasn't sure how Haub "escaped."