On wednesday, he was arrested on urgent suspicion of fraud as well as a risk of flight and collusion, brought before a magistrate and taken to the stadelheim detention center, as senior public prosecutor anne leiding said on thursday.
According to the insolvency administrators, P&R could have set up a kind of snowball system. Senior public prosecutor hans kornprobst estimates the damage at 1.5 to 2 billion euros.
P&R had sold containers to tens of thousands of investors, then immediately rented them back from them and, after a contractual period had expired, bought them back again at previously agreed prices. Insolvency administrator michael jaffe noted that although 1.6 million containers were in the books, only 618.000 actually exist. The gap has been building since 2007. Suspicion: money from new customers was often not used to buy new containers, but to pay out to old investors. P&R filed for bankruptcy in march.
Heinz R. Had founded the company decades ago and was also its managing director for a long time. He has not yet testified, said leiding. The judiciary is also investigating one of his successors. Two former managing directors are no longer alive.
A rough, two-day creditor meeting is planned for october in the munich olympic stadium. Round 54.000 investors who have invested around 3.5 billion euros with P&R over the past five years can still file their claims.