Asot scandal takes turn, senior PV Energy employee was known fraudster

0
2373
- Advertisement -

A 2003 United Nations report has revealed that a senior employee of PV Energy Limited was involved in a 4.3 million-US-dollar energy scandal more than a decade ago.
The man, Jo Hanns Dieter Trutschler, and his involvement in an energy scandal in Kosovo in 2002, has only come to light because of the May 11 United Kingdom High Court Judgement that Has seen former Investment Minister Asot Michael resign.
The judgment was delivered in a case in which PV Energy’s principal, Peter Virdee and Jo Hanns Dieter Trutschler were challenging their 2017 arrests in the UK.
The judgment contained transcripts of Virdee and Trutschler and in one case, both men and Michael discussing kickbacks and gifts for projects in Antigua and Barbuda and in St Kitts and Nevis.
But the involvement of Trutschler in PV Energy as stated in judgement, was a revelation in and of itself as the man is a known fraudster and he was not previously known to be involved with PV Energy.
However, the May 11 judgement states that Dieter Trutschler is “an employee” of PV Energy Limited and that the Swiss company that owns shares in PV Energy, the Meeco Group is owned by Trutschler’s wife.
According to a November 2003 UN report on the case, in 2002, while working in Kosovo, Trutschler was convicted of fraud related offences for illegally diverting US 4.3 million dollars in legitimate payments from one company, to accounts he controlled.
He was at the time, a senior staff member of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
 
Both the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services and the European Anti-Fraud Office investigated the case.
It was determined that Trutschler made Serbia’s electricity provider transfer the 4.3 million-US-dollars to a bank account under his control in Gibraltar.
The money was rightly meant for another company, the Kosovo Energy Company for the sale of electricity.
The 2003 UN report went on to say that when the fraud was discovered, Trutschler transferred more money to an offshore account in Belize “to evade recovery of the funds.”
It was also stated that he unlawfully obtained an additional 220-thousad Euros from the UNMIK “through the submission of false invoices.”
He was also found to have used a fake academic title to secure the job in the first place. The money was mostly recovered according to the report.
The report is dated November 13, 2003 and titled ‘Investigation into the fraudulent diversion of $4.3 million by a senior staff member of the reconstruction pillar of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK)’.
It is available online here: http://intlmgt.cipa.cornell.edu/sessions/internal/UNMIK%20investigation.pdf

- Advertisement -