“How much tax money has still been embezzled by the aid organisation?” asks the tabloid Bild in astonishment, suggesting that a new dimension is emerging in the embezzlement scandal at the Workers’ Samaritan Federation (ASB). The former managing director Mohamed A. (46 years old), who comes from Lebanon, and his suspected accomplices are said not to have diverted 3.5 million euros in aid money for refugees as they had previously done, but to have diverted three times that amount. According to the public prosecutor’s office, there is now even talk of 10 million euros!According to authorities spokesman Oliver Eisenhauer, the amount is based on a current projection. “And the investigation into the ASB affair has not yet been completed,” the newspaper continues. Already at the end of February, tax investigators and police officers searched the headquarters of the politically left-wing “aid organization” which is close to the SPD ( Social Democratic Party ) in Hainholz and confiscated incriminating documents. ASB manager Mohamed A. was arrested. The accusation was: infidelity, corruption and bribery. According to the newspaper Bild, he is said to have enriched himself with faked bills for guarding ASB refugee shelters from the tax-financed refugee budget.Other suspects of the fraud scandal include security boss Brian S. from the Nienburg district, A.’s vice-chairman Sven R. and Thomas F., former assistant to the ASB manager. According to newspaper reports, the defendants also financed their own companies with the sums they had defrauded. “Part of the money was allegedly deposited in Lebanon – the old home of Mohamed A.,” the Bild newspaper writes. A country from which many Arab clans operating in Germany originate.The case of the misappropriated refugee aid funds is not the only scandal that unsettles the ASB. Again and again individual executives but also whole parts of the “aid organization” are accused of irregularities or fraud.”Did the ASB Bavaria wrongly receive several million euros as a result of the settlement of expenses which it is said did not exist?” asked the radio station Bayrischer Rundfunk at the beginning of April, referring to an article in the newspaper Nürnberger Nachrichten. According to that “the ASB Bavaria with headquarters in Erlangen had at least since 2009 an internal surplus of several hundred thousand euros every year. This, as the newspaper says, is based on documents available to it. However, those responsible had only stated a fraction of this to the health insurance companies as the cost bearers. According to the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung, a regional association managing director of ASB Stuttgart had to answer for “embezzlement” in October of last year.”The manager is accused of embezzling money through consultancy contracts for which no service was provided. The prosecution confirmed that it searched the defendant’s premises on Friday.” The trial in Stuttgart finally concerned a solid one million euros.  The ASB also appears with strange methods in the “recruitment of new members”, as an article in the newspaper Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz vividly proves. Headline: “Alleged fraudster at the front door in Wintersheim is actually an ASB representative”. However, the ASB is in good company with other “social organisations” when it comes to recruiting new members. Because help is above all one thing: a profitable business.

journalistenwatch.com