“Gang Fraud Trial: The Curious Case of a Businessman Cheated Out of Hundreds of Thousands of Euros”

What kind of person is this who allowed himself to be stolen and cheated out of several hundred thousand euros by a total of five suspects and for a long time had no distrust of them? This question certainly occupied some people on Friday who followed the process of gang fraud at the Ellwangen district court. On the third and probably penultimate day of the hearing, the 55-year-old was called as a witness, which was eagerly awaited by many.

But this curiosity was initially dampened. After the lunch break, the presiding judge Bernhard Fritsch announced that the injured party had had an accident with his car and that it was currently unclear when and how he would come to court. Ultimately, he was picked up by correctional officers at the scene of the accident, and his car was loaded onto a tow truck. Visibly nervous and agitated, he entered the courtroom with his slightly tousled hair about 45 minutes later with his witness counsel and attorney Tobias Göbel from Heilbronn.

Then followed a two-hour question marathon, which revolved around the high fortune of the Crailsheim privateer and other detailed questions. Judge Fritsch in particular took the time to discuss the facts of the case with the 55-year-old, who was the managing director of a company. This time was also necessary because the man, who was in poor health, sometimes needed a little longer until “the answers reached his tongue”, as he himself explained. These speech disorders are the result of several strokes and heart attacks. His ability to think, he emphasized, was unaffected.

Why did the victim allow re-contact?

Judge Bernhard Fritsch in particular therefore asked himself why he allowed renewed contact with the accused after the first fraud in August 2022 for 150,000 euros, which he also reported to the police as such. “I’m just amazed that you, as a businessman, fell for the scam again,” says Fritsch. He suspected greed as a possible reason. “Did you see the chance to make money there?” The 55-year-old avoided this question. Started sentences, broke them off again.

He initially seemed much more secure when asked about his cash assets. He didn’t have one at home, he replied to the judge’s question. In addition, according to his statement, none were stolen from him in September 2021. According to the indictment, the 27-year-old accused, who was the only one who did not provide any information on the allegations, stole a sum of 120,000 euros together with another possible perpetrator. The other defendants confirmed this point and even went further: It was 180,000 euros.

After repeated inquiries from the presiding judge Bernhard Fritsch, he finally remembered having a larger amount of cash at home. Like the gold coins, he inherited this from his family. However, he no longer knows exactly when that was. He estimated the amount stolen at around 400,000 euros. The injured party came to this conclusion after adding up amounts, muttering to himself. It would have to amount to this sum if he had calculated correctly, he said.

The 55-year-old didn’t know that he was still the managing director

The 55-year-old was similarly uncertain when asked whether he would still work as managing director. At first he said no, but an excerpt from the commercial register showed that he was still registered as the managing director of a real estate company. Clearly unsettled, the man explained that he didn’t really know. His tax advisor advised him to do so because it would save him taxes. Presumably because of this good faith, lawyer Dirk Davidsohn from Bielefeld asked him whether he was currently under asset management. When the 55-year-old Crailsheimer denied this, the lawyer cheekily asked: “Why did you take a lawyer and not a doctor with you?”

However, the 55-year-old Crailsheimer was not entirely willing to divulge his entire private life to the court. Initially, he had denied his company’s bankruptcy in 2017 and the associated debts. However, after a police officer had already declared in court that the injured party owed the bank 688,000 euros, he finally admitted this. “I know that I have to tell the truth here, but I wasn’t aware that I had to put all my bread on the table here,” he told the chamber. After all, that was nobody’s business.

The accused come from orderly backgrounds

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But not only the witness had to answer all sorts of uncomfortable questions on Friday. In the morning, the five accused made statements about their private circumstances. At first glance, they all seem very organized. You grew up with your parents, have siblings and went to school. One of them has even graduated from high school and studied for a while, while the others have completed secondary school or at least good vocational training after completing secondary school. More or less by accident, all five became sales representatives for a company that sold books and facsimiles to well-heeled and mostly gullible people.

The same goes for the 55-year-old Crailsheimer, who apparently fits this picture perfectly. The last book he bought from this company, for example, cost 17,900 euros and later became his undoing: This was the only way he could be cheated by the five.