As of: March 21, 2024 10:15 a.m
For two decades, Jürgen Harksen has been bilking investors out of millions. After his extradition from South Africa, the trial began in Hamburg in 2003. The verdict is: six years and nine months in prison. He dies on March 19, 2024 in Mallorca.
At the end of the 1980s, an imposter fooled Hamburg’s elite: Jürgen Harksen sold investments and promised “Factor 13”, exorbitant returns of up to 1,300 percent. He doesn’t just attract small investors with his promises. Also celebrities like Udo Lindenberg and Dieter Bohlen invests their money with Harksen. Likewise the construction lion Siegfried Greve. Many of the investors are losing millions in the phantom transactions in Scandinavia. When the bubble burst, Harksen and his family fled to South Africa in 1993 – and continued his business there. In 2002 he was extradited to Germany. On April 11, 2003, the Hamburg Regional Court sentenced him to six years and nine months in prison for fraud in three cases. It is the story of a modern fairy tale.
Start a life with handicaps
Jürgen Harksen was born on December 30, 1960 as the third child of a Flensburg representative and a Danish master hairdresser. He has two older brothers and a younger sister. The cross-eyed boy doesn’t have an easy childhood: his father is a severe alcoholic and his mother is schizophrenic. Harksen himself suffers from a severe spelling problem and initially attends a special school, but then manages to graduate from secondary school. From 1976 onwards, Harksen lived in Odense, Denmark, making ends meet with odd jobs as a bailiff’s assistant and waiter. He meets the medical student Jeanette and marries her.
Ponzi scheme: The money of the rich for small investors
Jürgen Harksen – here in a photo from 1995 – lived a glossy life on other people’s money.
When he was 26 years old, he moved to Hamburg with his wife. Harksen wants to do something with his life – he, who has no training, wanted to “sell” and taught himself how to do it, she later writes “taz”. Harksen begins working as an investor in the Hanseatic city. First with the money from his wife and her friends. He has no knowledge of mathematics or finance. But he is clever. Harksen lures customers with gigantic returns of up to 1,300 percent – and invests their holdings in alleged transactions, stock deals and company takeovers in Scandinavia.
Wealthy Hamburg residents also become aware of Harksen. He uses a pyramid scheme to pay out small investors their profits – and for that he needs the money of the rich. But Harksen is not one to win over his investors with glossy brochures or balance sheets. He lures her with his company “Nordanalyse” and his lavish lifestyle. “A green document with a lot of spelling errors in it, but with a lot of stamps on it” was enough security for the investors, he said “Spiegel”.
Alleged oil discovery in Norway is expected to bring in billions
In 1987 Harksen released the “Scan 1000”. He reports on an allegedly huge oil discovery in a Norwegian fjord. He needs millions to acquire the mining rights – and so he asks his investors to “deposit plenty of money”. He then claims to have sold the rights to the Norwegian state for a profit. But until 1993, Harksen didn’t pay out a single mark in profits. He keeps finding reasons that supposedly prevent this. And pretends that the billions in profits are being blocked by the Scandinavians.
Harksen feigns glitz and glamour
Harksen undoubtedly has sales talent – and impresses with his colorful personality and engaging nature. He likes to portray himself as a strange bird, wearing a red jacket with a yellow shirt, but at the same time he maintains a serious air by always surrounding himself with believable characters. On the one hand there is the auditor Dirk H. and other financial advisors and lawyers. But sometimes they are just “actors” in dark suits. The customers like it, they line up in front of his office.
Harksen puts the money in his safe. With the money from his rich investors, he lives in luxury in a villa in Hamburg-Poppenbüttel – with a Ferrari, a yacht and a Learjet, champagne and parties. He calls these parties in his house “verbal anesthetic injections.” The good appearance is intended to give the impression that everything is going well, explains Harksen in 2010 in the NDR broadcast Panorama. Harksen exemplifies a lifestyle that most of his customers long for – a life of limitless luxury.
Udo Lindenberg and Dieter Bohlen are also investing
And Harksen cleverly stages himself: he holds customer meetings where well-heeled Hamburg residents who are considered stingy meet. This creates mutual trust. The desire for money and prestige also attracts stars into Harksen’s orbit. Udo Lindenberg invested 100,000 German marks, but got a strange gut feeling overnight and finally got his money back. Dieter Bohlen is also impressed by Harksen. This is shown by a statement from an audio book by the prominent singer Panorama relates: “When we had a concert in the Kremlin with Blue System, Harksen would rent a Boeing with 300 seats. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll fly you all over there,'” quotes the NDR political magazine the musician. Bohlen invests three million German marks. The power of money was stronger than that of reason, said Harksen about the studied businessman, singer and music producer.
Harksen is bilking Hamburg jewelers and builders
Harksen later states that he gave Bohlen the money back along with a severance payment of 600,000 marks. Bohlen never filed a criminal complaint against Harksen. But: The pop millionaire bit into his metal suitcase in Harksen’s office in anger when the investment bubble burst, he quotes “Spiegel” I’ll take a look.
Harksen also uses false oil wells and non-existent real estate to cheat jewelers, lawyers and builders, including the building contractor Siegfried Greve and the Hülse-Reutter jeweler couple.
Harksen provokes – but no one asks
Back then, no one wanted to believe that the million-dollar fairy tale couldn’t be true: customers were just throwing money at Harksen. The greed virus made them blind, deaf, unreasonable and submissive. “It blocks all reason,” Harksen tells Panorama about his customers. Even when he thinks up fantasy words without any meaning like “epibrate,” no one begins to doubt. Harksen wants to know how smart his customers are. After all, unlike him, most of them studied. “Can I expose them with the word ‘epibrate’?” he asks himself. And in fact: no one thinks to ask.
Escape to South Africa and stalling tactics
A “declaration of honor” to reassure investors: Jürgen Harksen assured the existence of his investments via video link in 1995.
However, investors then ask for their money. Harksen can keep them stalling for a long time with new promises. He can’t redeem it. In 1993 he fled to South Africa with his wife and two sons to evade creditors and avoid imminent arrest. The family moves into a villa with an artificial waterfall in a posh suburb of Cape Town. Harksen continues his luxury life there – and also his business. After all, he needs money to maintain his standards. In 1995, he was connected from Cape Town to a press conference in Hamburg at the “Atlantic” hotel. He reads out a “declaration of honor” and explains that the investments from “Nordanalyse” exist – with a value of over one billion German marks. Despite many inconsistencies, his investors believe him again. They probably didn’t want to admit it and didn’t want to expose themselves, Harksen tells Panorama.
The game for big money continues: Harksen is acquiring potential new investors from Cape Town under the company name “South Analysis”. The method remains the same. He puts the old ones off, invites them and celebrates lavish parties with them. Reputable investment advisors and financial auditors ensure that everything looks good. Harksen promises again and again: A large sum of money would soon be available.
Extradition from South Africa to Germany
End of a legal tug of war: On October 30, 2002, Jürgen Harksen is extradited to Germany.
But the pressure on him is growing. The cat-and-mouse game of legal maneuvers in South Africa has lasted nine years. Since there is no extradition agreement between the two countries, the process is lengthy. Finally, on October 30, 2002, Harksen was extradited to Germany. However, the original accusation of fraud in 218 cases involving 62 investors with damages of over 64 million marks is dropped – a condition of extradition. Most of the proceedings are discontinued – to the great annoyance of the cheated investors. Instead, as of February 28, 2003, the impostor is facing the Hamburg district court in only three cases for commercial fraud. In the dock for aiding and abetting: Harksen’s wife Jeanette and his auditor Dirk H..
“Reason has fallen by the wayside”
Jürgen Harksen, here with his lawyer Leonore Gottschalk-Solger, is sentenced to six and a half years in prison. He won’t be released a day sooner.
The prosecution’s evidence collection consists of 90 folders. The public prosecutor’s office is demanding six years in prison. Harksen appears remorseful in court. But with the verdict of April 11, 2003, the court went further than the prosecutor’s demand: Harksen had to go to prison for six and a half years. The judges, chaired by Ernst-Rainer Schudt, believe it has been proven that he defrauded three investors of a total of 28.4 million German marks in 52 cases. Harksen’s wife Jeanette gets off with two years’ probation for aiding and abetting fraud. “Everyone involved lost their sense somewhere in their fraud, perhaps at one of the big parties in Ibiza,” he quotes “Spiegel” Schudt. Harksen’s fraudulent deeds and his addiction to luxury had “fairytale characteristics,” the judge said in his verdict.
Harksen lands on the ground of reality
Harksen got his investors wrapped up – and they let themselves be wrapped up: his story even made it onto television. In 2010, Dieter Wedel filmed the life of the con artist in “Gier”. Ulrich Tukur plays the role of the fraudster who holds a mirror up to the rich. At first he laughed at the film, Harksen said in the Broadcast Panorama, but at the end he was thoughtful. “Was I really like that?”
In 2015 he was put on trial again in Hamburg for fraud. He had promised an acquaintance that he would find an adopted child for 120,000 euros. Harksen pays the money back. He now lives with his second wife under her name as a wine merchant in Mallorca – in modest circumstances, as he himself says.
On March 19, 2024, Jürgen Harksen dies in Mallorca at the age of 63.
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The first | Panorama | 01/21/2010 | 9:45 p.m