Wrapping up one of the most sensational investment-scam cases ever in post-war Germany, Hamburg’s district court found Juergen Harksen guilty of defrauding investors of millions of dollars and served a term longer than asked by prosecutors.
The court sentenced Harksen (42) to six years and nine months in prison – nine months longer than what the prosecution had sought, a rarity in the German legal system where courts generally serve terms less than what prosecutors demand.
Harksen’s defence had demanded acquittal.
The ”king of the con men”, as local media had dubbed him, admitted in court to having duped three investors of the German-mark equivalent of about $18-million between 1990-1992, before fleeing to South Africa.
Harksen was tried on only three specimen cases, in keeping with the terms of his extradition from South Africa in October 2002.
The actual amount of the money he defrauded investors with promises of huge returns — 1 300% or more on non-existing investment schemes — was much greater.
The case was being closely watched not only in Germany, where many people lost their money in Harksen’s bogus investment schemes, but also in South Africa, where he had fled in 1993 and continued to dupe investors there.
Two days before Friday’s sentencing, Harksen on German television showed little remorse about having cheated people of their money, putting a spin on events to blame them for being so gullible.
His only regret, he told German television, was having dragged down his wife Jeannette (40) with him in his fraudulent schemes.
The couple has three children, who are in South Africa.
”I regret having hurt her,” he said about his wife, once a successful physician who faces charges as an accessory. ”I don’t know if it is possible, but I hope I can save my marriage and that we can be a family again. That is the one goal I have left in
life.” – Sapa-DPA